Research Article

Zinc Promotes Adipose-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cell Proliferation and Differentiation towards a Neuronal Fate

Figure 3

Zinc promotes neuronal differentiation of AD-MSCs. Zinc affects the differentiation of AD-MSCs into neuron-like cells. AD-MSCs were cultured in neuronal differentiation medium containing either 0 or 10 μM ZnCl2 with or without CaEDTA. TUJ-1 expression was assessed through immunocytochemistry, and neurite length assay was performed as described above. The results showed that zinc promoted neurite outgrowth and expression of the neuronal marker TUJ-1. (a) Immunocytochemistry for TUJ-1 in treated AD-MSCs. Scale bar, 100 μm. (b) Neurite length in treated AD-MSCs. Experiments were performed on at least 70 cells and represent the mean ± SD from three independent experiment ( versus untreated with ZnCl2; versus treated with ZnCl2).
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