Objective: To investigate culturing neural stem cells (NSCs) from rat embryos in vitro and to observe their growth and differentiation.
Method: NSCs were isolated from hippocampus of SD rat embryos (P16-P18) and cultured in DMEM/F12 medium containing EGF, bFGF, B27. To observe process of cell proliferation by microscope and identify cell types by immunocytochemical analyses after differentiation.
Result: NSCs grew well in serum-free conditional medium and their cell bodies present transparent with good refraction at about eighth day. After differentiation, the cells demonstrated NSE and GFAP immunoreactive.
Conclusion: NSCs were cultured well in serum-free conditional medium and they could be induced to differentiate into neurons and astrocytes in serum conditional medium.