effect of staurosporine on neural differentiation of cd133+ umbilical cord blood cells

objective: cd133+ umbilical cord blood cells were identified as a hematopoietic stem cell which has the capacity for extensive self-renewal and differentiation. the aim of this study was to identify the effect of staurosporine (sts), a wellknown protein kinase inhibitor on differentiation of cd133+ cells into neural cells. materials and methods: cd133+ cells were enriched by immunomagnetic beads from human mononuclear cells of umbilical cord blood and the purity of higher than 94% was achieved by flowcytometry. induction of differentiation was performed by addition of sts (12.5, 25, and 50 nμ). the differentiated cells were evaluated by immunofluorescence and rt-pcr for neuron-specific proteins and transcripts. results: sts-treated cd133+ cells expressed mrna transcripts for neuronspecific neurofilament protein (nfm), and several basic helix-loop-helix (bhlh) transcription factors important for early neurogenesis, including otx2, wnt1, and hash1. the structural proteins characteristics of neurons including β-tubuliniii and microtubule-associated protein-2 (map-2), were shown by immunocytochemistry. sts-treated cd133+ cells also expressed the astrocytespecific marker, glial fibrillary acidic protein (gfap) by immunofluorescence. conclusion: the human cord blood-derived cd133+ hematopoietic stem cells could differentiate into neural cell types of neuron-like cells and astrocytes by sts treatment.