Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor 𝛽/𝛿 in the Brain: Facts and Hypothesis

Figure 2

PPARβ potential role in neural cell differentiation during development.PPARβ is expressed in the embryo and in the differentiating cells of the CNS and plays important role for the maintenance and/or differentiation of neural stem cells (NSC). PPARβ maintains NSC in an undifferentiated proliferative status [45]. Once the NSC cells have started to differentiate, PPARβ could play a role in (1) neuronal differentiation, inducing the morphological characteristics and the gene expression patterns of neuronal cells, (2) promoting the oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPC) differentiation [46], strongly expressing PPARβ [47], to mature oligodendrocytes [7]. In promoting differentiation, PPARβ also influences cell cycle and proliferation rate. Up to today no role has been clearly established for PPARβ in astrocyte differentiation. (↑ Activation in red, ⟂ Repression in blue).