Cells from the inner mass of blastocyst as a source of neural derivates for differentiation studies

Abstract

Our results show that cells derived from the inner cell mass (ICM) show a clear tendency to differentiate into the neural lineage, showing both cells and structures in different degrees of differentiation. Among the experimental paradigms used to learn about neural differentiation, there have been several lines of investigation on stem cells, including embryonic stem (ES) cells isolated from the inner cell mass of embryo and also stem cells derived from embryonic carcinoma (EC). In this work, we have used a cellular line obtained from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst. The cells were cultured and after inoculated subcutaneously in syngenic mice. The neural differentiation was predominant, and could be observed both by morphological and immunohistochemical methods. It was represented by neural-tubes, neurons and glial cells, as expressed by the presence of Microtubule-associated protein-2 (MAP-2) and glial fibrilary acidic protein. Moreover, tyrosine hydroxilase positive labelling was found in neuron-like cells, which suggest the chatecolaminergic differentiation. These results show that isolation of cells from the inner mass of blastocyst represents an easy, reproducible and cheap source of neural derivates suitable for both in vivo and in vitro differentiation studies.