Proliferative Effect Of Progesterone On Primary Cultured Microglia And BV-2Cells

Progesterone is one of steroid hormones in the human body. The curative effect of progesterone on nervous system diseases is widely recognized by majority of scholars. Recently, progesterone has been applied to clinical test for treating damage in neurons and glial cells. To a certain extent, progesterone has treatment effect on stroke, but researches on the specific mechanism of the curative effect are still required. Due to the complexity of its functional processes, progesterone has protective effect on neurons and impacts on glial cells. However, researches about the effects of progesterone on microglia are still very limited.In this study, we used transgenic mice expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) in microglia in the brain for primary culture of microglia, and used the BV-2cells for subculture. Primary microglia and BV-2cells were treated with oxygen and glucose deprivation (OGD) model, and then treated with the adequate doses of progesterone to explore the effect of progesterone on microglia. In this study, Hoechst33258fluorescent staining, Iba-1/BrdU immunocytochemical staining, MTT cell activity detection and flow cytometry were utilized.In primary microglia,40uM progesterone was added for treatment after24h OGD. Results showed that OGD decreased the total number of microglia and enhanced the apoptosis rate. However, progesterone promoted proliferation of microglia after OGD, and reduced the apoptosis rate of microglia. In BV-2cells,10uM progesterone was added for treatment after6h OGD. Results showed that, after6h OGD, the cell vitality and the cell proliferation were both significantly reduced, and the apoptosis rate increased significantly. However,10uM progesterone significantly enhanced the cell vitality and significantly reduced cell apoptosis rate. Additionally,10u.M progesterone made the cell cycle restore and promoted cell proliferation.In summary, OGD model produced obvious effects on both primary microglia and BV-2cells. After OGD, we used suitable doses of progesterone to treat the primary microglia and BV-2cells, and found that progesterone revitalized these cells and promoted their proliferation. We conclude that progesterone indeed had protective effects on microglia. This study provides certain theoretical basis for the application of progesterone in clinical therapy.