Sf. Pagano et al., The role of interleukin-6 (IL-6) in the proliferation and differentiation of human neural stem cells, NEUROSC R C, 29(1), 2001, pp. 1-14
The proliferation of human embryonic and adult stem cells is controlled by
extrinsic factors such as epidermal growth factor (EGF) and fibroblast grow
th factor (bFGF). Their differentiation, instead, is clearly determined by
a family of neuropoietic factors including ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNT
F), leukaemia inhibitory factor (LIF) and interleukin-6 (IL-6). The results
of this study show the capability of the interleukin-6 to delay the differ
entiation processes and to improve significantly the proliferation conditio
n of embryonic neural stem cells. Besides, clonal analysis shows that the s
elf-renewing capacity and the multipotentiality of human neural stem cells
are not modified by the presence of IL-6 during early and later culture pas
sages. This is an important demonstration of the high clonogenic potential
of IL-6 in human embryonic neural stem cells (heCNS-SC), whose capacity to
secrete IL-6 we have finally, demonstrated.