Involvement of blood mononuclear cells in the infertility, age-associated diseases and cancer treatment

Figure 16 Transdifferentiation of human vascular smooth muscle cells to the neuronal cells and smooth muscle stem cells after the treatment with sex steroid combinations. A: Untreated human smooth muscle cell control culture exhibits a moderate Thy-1 expression characteristic for vascular pericytes. Inset shows a lack of cytokeratin staining; B: Phase contrast (PhC) of smooth muscle cell culture 3 h after the treatment with Neurobasal/B27 medium showed a transdifferentiation of smooth muscle cells into neuronal cells connected multidirectionally by their neurites; C: The neuronal cells exhibited strong expression of Thy-1 glycoprotein characteristic for neuronal cells (compare with panel A) after the treatment with 20 mmol/L progesterone and 60 mmol/L testosterone (d1 PT); D: The so called “brain in vitro” shows strong expression of vimentin, which is characteristic for the human neural cells; E: When 12 mmol/L estradiol was added to the progesterone and testosterone, the proportion of human smooth muscle cell culture dedifferentiated in 3 h into human smooth muscle stem cells (black arrowheads), which exhibited anchors of bubble-like type (white arrowheads), indicating their ability for a settlement. These cells redifferentiated in a few days in the fresh new human smooth muscle cells (F - compare with panel A). Adjusted from[81] with permission: ^©Landes Bioscience.