Effects of GM-CSF on the neural progenitor cells

Abstract

Granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) is a potent hematopoietic cytokine, which stimulates stem cell proliferation in the bone marrow. We now report that GM-CSF receptors expressed on neural progenitor cells and can mediate a biological response in cells to treat with GM-CSF treated neural progenitor cells exhibited a proliferative response and a marked decrease in terminal differentiation to mature neuron or astrocytes. GM-CSF treatment also suppressed neural progenitor cell apoptosis. These findings suggest that GM-CSF can stimulate the proliferation and inhibit the apoptosis of neural progenitor cells to expand the progenitor population, and that GM-CSF has a potential role in neural development or repair.

GM-CSF protects rat photoreceptors from death by activating the SRC-dependent signalling and elevating anti-apoptotic factors and neurotrophins

“…GM-CSF appears to be locally produced and acts either direct on RGCs or via regulating the function of microglial cells, which are of hematopoietic origin and resemble intraneural resident dendritic cells [54,55]. GM-CSF can cross the blood-brain and blood-cerebrospinal-fluid barriers, and may act as an inflammatory cytokine with neuroprotective effects [49,[56][57][58][59][60].…”

Granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor shows anti-apoptotic activity in neural progenitor cells via JAK/STAT5-Bcl-2 pathway

“…The main functions of GM-CSF are to stimulate proliferation and differentiation of bone marrow stem cells, and inhibit apoptosis of hematopoietic cells [1]. However, it is also well known that the GM-CSF receptor is expressed on many neural cells types in the developing brain and in the mature central nervous system (CNS), and GM-CSF has neurotrophic and neurogenic activities [2][3][4][5][6]. Our group and others have demonstrated that GM-CSF have neuroprotective effects on cultured neuronal cells in vitro and in animal models of CNS injuries such as spinal cord injury (SCI), brain ischemic injury and Parkinson's disease [7][8][9][10][11][12][13].…”

GM-CSF inhibits glial scar formation and shows long-term protective effect after spinal cord injury

“…GM-CSF can function as a neurotrophic factor [9] and induce proliferation of neural progenitor cells (NPCs) [10] in vitro. Therapeutic effect of GM-CSF is already well known in the peripheral nervous system (PNS) injury by activating macrophages and Schwann cells to remove myelin debris [11][12][13].…”