MORPHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION ON DIFFERENTIATING NEURONAL CELLS FROM RAT BONE MARROW CELLS IN VITRO

The present study was designed to find a method of neural cell differentiation from the bone marrow cells and observe their morphological changes. The bone marrow cells were cultured from aspirates taken from the femur and tibia of albino Sprague-Dawley adult rats (Harlan-Sprague-Dawley), The morphological changes of these cells in different stages were observed by light microscope and scanning electron microscope, and then identified by immunocytochemical staining. The results showed that the developmental process from bone marrow cells into the neuron-like cells included monocellular, cell division, clone mass or sphere formation, budding and apophysis formation, which were observed by scanning electron microscope. These data may infer that a kind of big and round cells (BRC) is possibly the precursor of neuro-like cells in bone marrow. Cells erupt foot-like structure and adhered to the extracellular matrix (ECM) at 24 hours and differentiating neuro-like cells at 20-30 days after culture. Neuro-like cells have various forms, including spherical shape, taper, asteroid and fusiform shape. The neural stem cells, neurons and glial cells were identified as positive for nestin, NeuN and GFAP respectively. The experiment was successed in finding a method of differetiation from the whole bone marrow cells into neural cells, and the ultrastructures of these cells were confirmed by scanning electron microscope. The study provided the morphological data of the differentiation from bone marrow cells into neural cells.