Transcriptional Profiling of Hypoxic Neural Stem Cells to Identify Novel Regulators of Neural Stem Cell Biology. Mus musculus

Neural stem cells reside in a hypoxic microenvironment within the brain. However, the crucial transcription factors that regulate neural stem cell biology under physiologic hypoxia are poorly understood. Here, we have performed microarray analysis of hypoxic versus normoxic neural stem cells with the aim of identifying pathways and transcription factors that are activated under oxygen concentrations mimicking normal brain tissue microenvironment. Overall design: To identify the molecular mechanisms mediating the effect of low oxygen levels on NSC biology, we profiled the global effect of sustained, physiologic hypoxia on NSC gene expression using an unbiased approach by genome-wide microarray analysis. NSC were isolated from E13.5 mouse embryos (OF-1 strain) as previously described (Johe et al., 1996). After isolation, cells were immediately cultured at 37°C, 5% CO2 and either 5% or atmospheric (≈21%) oxygen and maintained in these conditions for 2-3 passages (minimum of 10 days). Then, total RNA was extracted, labeled and hybridized in a SurePrint G3 Mouse GE 8x60k array (Agilent Technologies). Four independent experiments were performed using different mouse donors for each experiment.