There is evidence that under the normal circumstances, astrocytes participate in normal physiological activities and development, maintain neuronal environment, and exhibit therapeutic and repairing effects on brain injury and neurodegenerative disease.

Previous studies have found that nerve cells differentiated from adipose-derived stromal cells after chemical induction have reduced viability, which produces influences on subsequent studies and application.

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Immunocytochemical staining revealed that at seven days after chemical induction, caspase-3 expression (arrow) was detected in the cytoplasm of adipose-derived stromal cells.
Credit: Neural Regeneration Research

Prof. Xiaodong Yuan, Kailuan General Hospital, Hebei United University, China demonstrated that after chemical induction, with increasing time, the apoptotic rate of adipose-derived stromal cells gradually increased, and the number of living cells gradually decreased, and the number of glial fibrillary acidic protein-, caspase-3- and caspase-9positive cells gradually increased and some adipose-derived stromal cells exhibited typical signs of apoptosis after differentiation.

Therefore, the authors considered that caspase-dependent apoptosis is an obstacle to the differentiation of adipose-derived stromal cells into astrocytes and inhibiting apoptosis may be an important strategy for increasing the efficiency of induction.

Related findings were published in Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 9, No. 8, 2014).

Article: " Apoptosis is an obstacle to the differentiation of adipose-derived stromal cells into astrocytes," by Xiaodong Yuan1, Qiaoyu Sun1, Ya Ou1, Shujuan Wang1, Wenli Zhang2, Hongliang Deng1, Xiaoying Wu1, Lili Zhang1 (1 Department of Neurology, Kailuan General Hospital, Hebei United University, Tangshan, Hebei Province, China; 2 Department of Electron Microscopy, Hebei United University, Tangshan, Hebei Province, China)

Yuan XD, Sun QY, Ou Y, Wang SJ, Zhang WL, Deng HL, Wu XY, Zhang LL. Apoptosis is an obstacle to the differentiation of adipose-derived stromal cells into astrocytes. Neural Regen Res. 2014;9(8):837-844.