title: Guanosine promotes proliferation of neural stem cells through cAMP-CREB pathway.
abstract: In previous studies, we have found that extracellular guanosine can stimulate endogenous progenitor/stem cell proliferation in the spinal cord following chronic injury and in the subventricular zone of the brains of rats afflicted with Parkinson's Disease. In this study, using neural stem cells isolated from one-day old rats, we found that guanosine could stimulate neural stem cell proliferation, and that the proliferation was not due to the guanosine metabolism mechanism since guanine, which is interconverted by an ecto-purine nucleoside phosphorylase from guanosine, has no stimulating effect on the proliferation of neural stem cells. We determined that second messenger cAMP was involved in the pathway as results showed that 100 microM guanosine stimulated cAMP accumulation. Using western blot analysis, we found that 100 microM guanosine can activate the phosphorylation of CREB without changing the total amount of CREB. In conclusion, guanosine can stimulate neural stem cell proliferation, and the cAMP-CREB pathway is involved in this biological effect.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Surgery (Neurosurgery, Neuroscience and Neurobiology), Hamilton NeuroRestorative Group (NRG), McMaster University, Health Sciences Centre, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Su
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ballerini
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Caciagli
authors.forename: M P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Rathbone
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jiang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D049109:Cell Proliferation / Q000187:drug effects*; D000242:Cyclic AMP / Q000502:physiology*; D017362:Cyclic AMP Response Element-Binding Protein / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006147:Guanine / Q000494:pharmacology; D006151:Guanosine / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008297:Male; D058953:Neural Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D010766:Phosphorylation; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D015398:Signal Transduction
chemical_list: D017362:Cyclic AMP Response Element-Binding Protein; D006151:Guanosine; D006147:Guanine; D000242:Cyclic AMP