Wnt-1 promotes neuronal differentiation and inhibits gliogenesis in P19 cells.
Wnt-1, the vertebrate counterpart of the Drosophila wingless gene, plays an important role in the early morphogenesis of neural tissues. In this report, we have shown that overexpression of Wnt-1 can direct embryonic carcinoma P19 cells to differentiate into neuron-like cells in the absence of retinoic acid. Immunocytochemistry showed that these cells expressed neuronal markers, such as the neurofilament (NF) and microtubule-associated protein 2 (MAP2), but failed to express the glial cell marker, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). RT-PCR revealed that two basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) genes, Mash-1 and Ngn-1, were up-regulated during the differentiation stage of Wnt-1-overexpressing P19 cells. These results suggest that the Wnt-1 gene promotes neuronal differentiation and inhibits gliogenesis during the neural differentiation of P19 cells, and that neural bHLH genes might be involved in this process.
Tang
K
K
Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 320 Yue Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, China.
Yang
J
J
Gao
X
X
Wang
C
C
Liu
L
L
Kitani
H
H
Atsumi
T
T
Jing
N
N
D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D018236:Carcinoma, Embryonal; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002460:Cell Line; D017931:DNA Primers; D051379:Mice; D009457:Neuroglia / Q000166:cytology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology*; D009928:Organ Specificity; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011505:Protein-Tyrosine Kinases / Q000378:metabolism; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured; D051153:Wnt Proteins; D051155:Wnt1 Protein; D029961:Zebrafish Proteins
D017931:DNA Primers; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; D051153:Wnt Proteins; D051155:Wnt1 Protein; C495246:Wnt1 protein, mouse; D029961:Zebrafish Proteins; D011505:Protein-Tyrosine Kinases