To investigate the effects of sodium aescinate on the differentiation of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (HUMSC) into neural-like cells and its possible mechanism.

HUMSC cells were randomly divided into blank group, experiment-L group, experiment-M group and experiment-H group. All the cells were cultured with neurobasal medium (NM) medium, cells in experiment-L group, experiment-M group and experiment-H group were treated with 1.00, 2.00 and 4.00 mg·L^-1 sodium aescinate, respectively. The expression levels of neuron-like cells markers and synaptic markers were detected by reverse transcription-polymerase quantitative chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and Western blot.

The relative mRNA expression levels of microtubule-associated protein 2 (MAP-2) in blank group, experiment-L group, experiment-M group and experiment-H group were 1.00±0.14, 1.26±0.08, 1.74±0.16 and 2.30±0.20, respectively; the relative mRNA expression levels of growth associated protein 43(GAP43) were 1.00±0.10, 1.14±0.15, 1.34±0.15 and 1.53±0.11, respectively; the relative expression levels of synaptophysin(SYN) mRNA were 1.00±0.09, 1.15±0.08, 1.32±0.12 and 1.48±0.13, respectively; the expression levels of neurofilament heavy chain(NF-H) protein were 0.41±0.04, 0.50±0.06, 0.71±0.06 and 1.21±0.09, respectively; postsynaptic density protein 95(PSD95) protein expression levels were 0.27±0.04, 0.41±0.06, 0.52±0.04 and 0.68±0.06, respectively; silent information regulator 1(SIRT1) protein expression levels were 0.31±0.04, 0.52±0.06, 0.67±0.06 and 0.80±0.10, respectively. The above indexes in experiment-L group, experiment-M group and experiment-H group were compared with blank group, the differences were all statistical significant (P<0.05, P<0.01); the above indexes compared among experiment-L group, experiment-M group and experiment-H group, the differences were all statistically significant (P<0.05, P<0.01).

Sodium aescinate may induce the differentiation of HUMSC into neural-like cells by regulating SIRT1 in vitro.