Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) plays important roles in neural stem cell (NSC) growth. In this study, we investigated whether BDNF exerts its neurotrophic effects through the Wnt/-catenin signaling pathway in human embryonic spinal cord NSCs (hESC-NSCs) in vitro. We found an increase in hESC-NSC growth by BDNF overexpression. Furthermore, expression of Wnt1, Frizzled1 and Dsh was upregulated, whereas GSK-3 expression was downregulated. In contrast, hESC-NSC growth was decreased by BDNF RNA interference. BDNF, Wnt1 and -catenin components were all downregulated, whereas GSK-3 was upregulated. Next, we treated hESC-NSCs with 6-bromoindirubin-3-oxime (BIO), a small molecule inhibitor of GSK-3. BIO reduced the effects of BDNF upregulation/downregulation on the cell number, soma size and differentiation, and suppressed the effect of BDNF modulation on the Wnt signaling pathway. Our findings suggest that BDNF promotes hESC-NSC growth in vitro through crosstalk with the Wnt/-catenin signaling pathway, and that this interaction may be mediated by GSK-3.
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