Molecular pathways involved in neural in vitro differentiation of marrow stromal stem cells

In recent years several reports have claimed to demonstrate trans-differentiation, namely that stem cells have been derived from a given tissue and have differentiated into phenotypes characteristic of different tissues following transplantation or in vitro treatment. For example, the mesenchymal stem cells, also referred to as marrow stromal stem cells (MSCs), present in bone marrow, have been induced to differentiate into neurons. We decided to investigate this phenomenon more in depth by a molecular and morphological follow-up. We analyzed the biochemical pathways that are currently induced to trigger neuron-like commitment and maturation of MSCs. Our studies suggest that: (i) the increase in cAMP, induced to differentiate MSCs, activates the classical PKA pathway and not through the exchange protein directly activated by cAMP (EPAC), a guanine nucleotide exchange factor for the small GTPase Rap1 and Rap2; (ii) MEK–ERK signaling could contribute to neural commitment and differentiation; (iii) CaM KII activity seems dispensable for neuron differentiation. On the contrary, its inhibition could contribute to rescuing differentiating cells from death. Our research also indicates that the currently used in vitro differentiation protocols, while they allow the early steps of neural differentiation to take place, are not able to further sustain this process.