Autologous platelet-rich plasma promotes neurogenic differentiation of human adipose-derived stem cells in vitro.

Nervous system injury causes severe medical and social problems worldwide, and doctors have not found any ultimate solutions to it until now. The regenerative medicine using stem cells is a promising technology to conquer this challenge. In this study, we explored the influence of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) on neural differentiation of adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs). Human ASCs (hASCs) were harvested and isolated from lipoaspirates of liposuction operations. They were cultured to the third passage and characterized by specific cell markers and multilineage differentiation capacities. Autologous PRP was isolated and prepared from venous blood of the same patient underwent liposuction. The cultured hASCs were treated with either neural inductive conditioned medium plus 10% PRP (experimental group) or neural inductive conditioned medium alone (control group). The supplement of autologous PRP into culture medium obviously promoted proliferation of hASCs. After two weeks of neurogenic induction, the hASCs treated with PRP displayed higher level of neuron-specific enolase and membrane-associated protein-2 compared with the control group. Gene expression level of growth associated protein-43 (GAP-43), neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM), and synapsin 1 (SYN-1) in the PRP group was also higher than in the control group. These results indicate PRP is capable of promoting cell proliferation and neurogenic differentiation of hASCs in vitro. Addition of autologous PRP could facilitate the potential use of hASCs in nerve regeneration.