Golden snub-nosed monkeys are endangered animals in China, and their cells have been demonstrated to be important as genetic resources and in applications for advancing biological research. Moreover, in primary research, basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) is used to promote the proliferation of fibroblasts to create abundant cells for cryopreservation. To further investigate the effect of bFGF on the efficiency of preservation of fibroblasts obtained from an endangered species, a fibroblast cell line was isolated from a dead golden snub-nosed monkey. Cell viability and mitochondrial membrane potential were assessed using CCK8 and JC-1 assay kits. The karyotype was analyzed by chromosomal microarray analysis, while RNA sequencing and gene expression analyses were performed to assess molecular changes in response to bFGF. Flow cytometry was used to characterize changes in cell surface markers in response to bFGF treatment. The results showed that cells maintained typical fibroblast morphology, while cell viability and mitochondrial membrane potential were not significantly affected between three and eight passages (p > 0.05). We also observed that the addition of bFGF promoted fibroblast proliferation and increased mitochondrial membrane potential. In addition, the bFGF treatment did not alter the normal karyotype of cells, downregulating fibroblast-associated genes and upregulating those associated with cell regulation, including those of the WNT, PI3K and MAPK pathways. The addition of bFGF also increased CD29, CD90, CD105, CD34 and CD44 expression while decreasing that of CD14 and HLA-DR at the protein level. Taken together, these results demonstrate that bFGF may upregulate the WNT, PI3K and MAPK pathways to promote cell proliferation while also increasing the expression of genes and surface markers associated with mesenchymal and hematopoietic cell linages.
Keywords: Fibroblast; Gene expression; Golden snub-nosed monkey; RNA sequencing; bFGF.