Objective: Wnt signaling has been implicated in the control of cell growth and differentiation during the development of the central nervous system. In this work, we assessed the role of Wnt pathway in the regulation of genes related to the neuronal differentiation of stem cells.
Methods: C3H10T1/2 mouse mesenchymal stem cells were transfected with the Ad5 recombinant plasmid encoding Wnt3A. The Wnt3A-induced gene expression profile of these cells was determined with the Affymetrix MG430A 2.0 chip. The microarray results were confirmed by real-time polymerase chain reaction.
Results: Several differentially expressed genes were identified in the Wnt3A-transfected cells. Many of these genes are targets of the Wnt signaling pathway, such as those encoding beta-catenin, Frizzled7, Frizzled1, LRP5, Dishevelled, axin, and GSK-3beta. Transfection of Wnt modulated the expression of genes of neuronal differentiation of these stem cells.
Conclusion: This work demonstrated that Wnt is an important regulator gene for the expression of neurogenesis of stem cells.