The Study Of Neuroectodermal Conversion From Adult Skeletal Muscle Derived Stem Cells In Vitro

Skeletal muscle tissues are derived from mesoblast. The adult skeletal muscle tissues consist of terminal differentiated polynuclear muscular fibers and several kinds of mononuclear cell populations. The mononuclear cell populations are regarded as the primary skeletal muscle stem cells, existing close to the skeletal muscle fibers under the basal membranes. These skeletal muscle stem cells are always at the quiescent state. When stimulated by various kinds of damage factors, they will be activated to proliferate and fuse to generate new matured skeletal muscle cells in order to restore damaged tissues. These cells also can be activated by specific culture media or factors in vitro. These activated skeletal muscle derived stem cells are called myoblasts.It has been demonstrated that skeletal muscle derived stem cells have the capability of multi-potential differentiation as well as the stem cells of other tissues. They conld be induced to differentiate not only into muscular tissues, but also into many other tissue cells such as mesoblast derived osteogenic tissues, fat-like cells, interstitial cells, and even stride over the restriction of blastoderm lineage to convert into neural ectoderm by special micro-environment or in the condition of some growth factors. Therefore, skeletal muscle derived stem cells may be considered as a cell source of transplantation therapy for nervous system diseases.In present study, primary stem cells were isolated from adult rat skeletal muscle tissues. They were cultivated in vitro for proliferation (also called myoblasts), and under special media, they were induced to differentiate into neural progenitors, and further into neurons or glial cells. At the same time, the conversion properties of myoblast cell lines and non-muscular cell line were also compared with myoblasts. The result of the experiment indicated that the inductive condition was very special for the primary cultured myoblasts. Myoblasts may be regarded as a new source of stem cells for nervous system diseases therapy, especially for nervous degenerative diseases therapy.