Research

The proteome of neural stem cells from adult rat hippocampus

Martin H Maurer^{* 1} , Robert E Feldmann Jr^{* 1} , Carsten D Fütterer² and Wolfgang Kuschinsky¹

¹Dept. of Physiology and Pathophysiology, University of Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 326, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany

²Dept. of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Faculty of Clinical Medicine Mannheim, Theodor-Kutzer-Ufer, 68167 Mannheim, Germany

author email corresponding author email* Contributed equally

Proteome Science 2003, 1:4doi:10.1186/1477-5956-1-4

Published:	12 June 2003

Abstract

Background

Hippocampal neural stem cells (HNSC) play an important role in cerebral plasticity in the adult brain and may contribute to tissue repair in neurological disease. To describe their biological potential with regard to plasticity, proliferation, or differentiation, it is important to know the cellular composition of their proteins, subsumed by the term proteome.

Results

Here, we present for the first time a proteomic database for HNSC isolated from the brains of adult rats and cultured for 10 weeks. Cytosolic proteins were extracted and subjected to two-dimensional gel electrophoresis followed by protein identification through mass spectrometry, database search, and gel matching. We could map about 1141 ± 209 (N = 5) protein spots for each gel, of which 266 could be identified. We could group the identified proteins into several functional categories including metabolism, protein folding, energy metabolism and cellular respiration, as well as cytoskeleton, Ca²⁺ signaling pathways, cell cycle regulation, proteasome and protein degradation. We also found proteins belonging to detoxification, neurotransmitter metabolism, intracellular signaling pathways, and regulation of DNA transcription and RNA processing.

Conclusions

The HNSC proteome database is a useful inventory which will allow to specify changes in the cellular protein expression pattern due to specific activated or suppressed pathways during differentiation or proliferation of neural stem cells. Several proteins could be identified in the HNSC proteome which are related to differentiation and plasticity, indicating activated functional pathways. Moreover, we found a protein for which no expression has been described in brain cells before.