Immature neurons from CNS stem cells proliferate in response to platelet-derived growth factor

Identifying external signals involved in the regulation of neural stem cell proliferation and differentiation is fundamental to the understanding of CNS development. In this study we show that platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) can act as a mitogen for neural precursor cells. Multipotent stem cells from developing CNS can be maintained in a proliferative state under serum-free conditions in the presence of fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF2) and induced to differentiate into neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes on withdrawal of the mitogen. PDGF has been suggested to play a role during the differentiation into neurons. We have investigated the effect of PDGF on cultured stem cells from embryonic rat cortex. The PDGF alpha -receptor is constantly expressed during differentiation of neural stem cells but is phosphorylated only after PDGF-AA treatment. In contrast, the PDGF beta -receptor is hardly detectable in uncommitted cells, but its expression increases during differentiation. We show that PDGF stimulation leads to c-fos induction, 5'-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine incorporation, and an increase in the number of immature cells stained with antibodies to neuronal markers. Our findings suggest that PDGF acts as a mitogen in the early phase of stem cell differentiation to expand the pool of immature neurons.