Cadherins are important adhesion molecules that mediate adhesions and communications between cells. These molecules participate in the formation and maintenance of multicellular organisms including the stem cells. E-cadherin is one of the classic cadherins which is reported to be essential for the survival and self-renewal of embryonic stem cells. Moreover, it could induce cell proliferation inhibitory signaling to regulate cell proliferation. In our study, we over-expressed and silenced E-cadherin in NSCs by lentiviral ways. Transgenic cells were confirmed by both quantitative RT-PCR and western blot. Results of MTT assay showed that over-expression of E-cadherin could enhance the cell activity. Furthermore, we performed Transwell chamber assay to analyze its role in regulation of cell migration. The results showed that the migration percent of over-expression cells was lower than control. Our results indicated that E-caherin would maintain the stemness of NSCs and reduce cells migration.
Keywords: Cadherins; E-cadherin; N-cadherin; cell activity; cell migration; neural stem cell.