Effects of Nerve Growth Factor and its Family Proteins on the Survival of Cultured from Adult Rat Brains.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The development, survival and degeneration of neurons are regulated by numerous genetic and environmental factors. Since mature neurons are known not to undergo mitosis, it might be expected that factors such as nerve growth factor (NGF). NGF has previously been shown to play am important role in the neuronal differentiation of immature basal forebrain cholinergic neurons. We found now that NGF appears to support survival in culture of basal forebrain cholinergic neurons from postnatal rats. We now established a technique for culturing primary neuronal cells from upto 8-week-old rats. NGF induces differentiation of the neurons from neonatal as well as fetal ones. NGF does not induce the differentiation, but rather promotes the survival of these neurons from 2-week-old rats, in manner that is independent of plating cell density. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gave the almost same effect as NGF.These neurons from postnatal 8-week-old rats, however, are less responsive to NGF. These results suggest that the physiological roles of NGF and BDNF change during the development of the rat brain.