Minocycline Directly Enhances the Self-Renewal of Adult Neural Precursor Cells

The therapeutic role of minocycline in Parkinson's disease

Minocycline, a semisynthetic tetracycline-derived antibiotic, has been shown to exert anti-apoptotic, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant effects. Furthermore, there is rapidly growing evidence suggesting that minocycline may have some neuroprotective activity in various experimental models such as cerebral ischemia, traumatic brain injury, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Parkinson's disease (PD), Huntington's disease, and multiple sclerosis. In this perspective review, we summarize the preclinical and clinical findings suggesting the neuroprotective role of minocycline in PD.

A novel long noncoding RNA lnc158 promotes the differentiation of mouse neural precursor cells into oligodendrocytes by targeting nuclear factor-IB

Long noncoding RNAs have been implicated in oligodendrocyte myelination and oligodendrocyte maturation, but their roles in normal oligodendrocyte differentiation are not fully defined. Here, we report a novel nonprotein-coding RNA, named lnc158, discovered in mouse oligodendrocytes identified in subependymal ventricular zone tissue by single-cell RNA sequencing. Lnc158 is an endogenous antisense transcript of nuclear factor-IB (NFIB) and complementary to 3' untranslated region of NFIB mRNA. NFIB is a member of the nuclear factor-I family and is essential in the development of many organs such as brains and lungs. We found that lnc158 transcripts serve a biological function by regulating the transcription level of the NFIB coding gene in neural stem cells. Overexpression of lnc158 increased the expression of NFIB mRNA and knockdown of lnc158 decreased the expression of NFIB mRNA, suggesting that NFIB is regulated positively by lnc158. Further analyses showed that overexpression of lnc158 in neural stem cells induced a modest increase in CNP, MBP, MAG, and OSP mRNA level, and enhanced induction of differentiation along the lineage of oligodendrocytes. These results together imply that lnc158 positively modulates the transcription level of NFIB mRNA, leading to the enhanced induction of oligodendrocytes.

Effect and mechanism of mGluR6 on the biological function of rat embryonic neural stem cells

Here, we investigated the effects and molecular mechanisms of metabotropic glutamate receptor 6 (mGluR6) on rat embryonic neural stem cells (NSCs). Overexpression of mGluR6 significantly promoted the proliferation of NSCs and increased the diameter of neutrospheres after treatment for 24 h, 48 h and 72 h. Overexpression of mGluR6 promoted G1 to S phase transition, with significantly decreased cell ratio in G1/G0 phase but significantly increased cell ratio in S phase. Additionally, mGluR6 overexpression for 48 h decreased the early and late apoptosis significantly. Moreover, overexpression of mGluR6 significantly increased the expression of p-ERK1/2, Cyclin D1 and CDK2, while the expression of p-p38 was significantly decreased. On the contrary, these effects of mGluR6 overexpression were reversed by mGluR6 knockdown. In conclusion, mGluR6 promotes the proliferation of NSCs by activation of ERK1/2-Cyclin D1/CDK2 signaling pathway and inhibits the apoptosis of NSCs by blockage of the p38 MAPK signaling pathway.