Cdh1–APC is involved in the differentiation of neural stem cells into neurons

• DOI: 10.1097/wnr.0b013e32833312fe
• Publication Date: 2009-12-09T08:26:26Z
• Authors: Wenlong Yao; Wei Qian; Chang Zhu; Lingli Gui; Jin Qiu; Chuanhan Zhang
• Keywords: Neurons; 0301 basic medicine; 0303 health sciences; Stem Cells; Ubiquitin-Protein Ligase Complexes; Cell Cycle Proteins; Cell Differentiation; Nerve Tissue Proteins; Tretinoin; Hippocampus; Anaphase-Promoting Complex-Cyclosome; Cdh1 Proteins; Rats; Nestin; 03 medical and health sciences; Animals, Newborn; Gene Expression Regulation; Intermediate Filament Proteins; Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein; Animals; RNA, Messenger; Microtubule-Associated Proteins; Cells, Cultured

The anaphase-promoting complex (APC) is a multisubunit E3 ubiquitin ligase that controls cell cycle transition in proliferating cells. Recent studies show that Cdh1-APC is active in postmitotic neurons, which regulates axonal growth and patterning, synaptic development and neuronal survival. However, the role of Cdh1-APC in neural stem cells differentiation remains unknown. Using quantitative reverse transcription-PCR, we observed that Cdh1 was expressed higher in neurons than in neural stem cells in vitro. Cdh1 was upregulated, whereas Id2 (one downstream substrate of Cdh1-APC) was downregulated when primary neural stem cells were induced to differentiate into neurons by all-trans retinoic acid. This observation suggests that Cdh1 is involved in the control of neural stem cells differentiated into neurons.