Effects of NGF on apoptosis and differentiation of hypoxic cultured neural stem cells

Objective To investigate the effects of hypoxia condition on apoptosis and differentiation of fetal rat cerebral neural stem cells(NSCs)and the protective effects of NGF on NSCs in hypoxia.Methods Third generation of NSCs was randomly divided into three groups:control group of normal cultures without hypoxia,hypoxia group cultivated in hypoxia and NGF group cultivated in hypoxia with addition of NGF.Each group was cultivated for 36 h.Bcl-2 and Bax protein contents were measured by Western blot and bcl-2,bax,nne,nse,gfap gene expression was examined by RT-PCR.Results In hypoxia group,bcl-2 content depressed and bax content increased obviously(P0.01)as compared with other two groups after NSCs were differentiated for 1,2,3 days.Bcl-2 and bax expression was not different between NGF group and control group on day 2 and days 1,2,3 of differentiation of NSCs respectively.Expression of nse and nne was lower in hypoxia group than in control and NGF groups,but gfap expression was hipher on days 1,2,3 of differentiation(P0.01).Compared with control group,nse expression in NGF group had obvious difference on days 2,3 of differentiation,nne and gfap expression had notable differences on days 1,3 and day 2 of differentiation respectively.Conclusion NSCs apoptosis can be caused by hypoxia and some apoptotic genes and NSCs marker genes show different alterations by hypoxia.NGF has the function of protecting NSCs against apoptosis.