Narges Mahmoodi - Sina Trauma and Surgery Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Vafa Rahimi-Movaghar - Sina Trauma and Surgery Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Elham Hasanzadeh - Department of Tissue Engineering, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran
Houra Nekounam - Department of Medical Nanotechnology, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Fatemeh Asghari - Department of Medical Nanotechnology, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Faezeh Esmaili RanjbaR - Department of Tissue Engineering and Applied Cell Sciences, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Faculty of Allied Medical Sciences, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran

One of the proposed therapeutic approaches for spinal cord injury (SCI) is substituting lost and damaged cells by differentiated stem cells (۱, ۲). Human endometrial stem cells (hEnSCs) is a mesenchymal stem cell that has been presented as a new source for neural tissue engineering applications with the capability to differentiate into many neural cell types (۳, ۴). Valproate sodium (VAS) is a small molecule that can pass through the blood brain barrier (BBB) and has neuroprotective and anti‐inflammatory properties. Also, VAS inhibits the differentiation of astrocytes and oligodendrocytes, which are essential for SCI repair (۴). Our goal was to study the effect of VAS on the expression of synaptophysin (SYP) in neural-like cells differentiated from endometrial stem cells. hEnSCs were extracted using collagenase type I, and at passage three, the cells were confirmed by flow cytometry. For motor neuron differentiation, the hEnSCs were treated in three steps: ۱) preinduction step (۱ day), ۲) induction step (۷ days), ۳) maturation step (۷ days). The VAS (۱۰۰ μg/mL) was added in step ۳ of differentiation. After ۱۵ days, the expression of synaptophysin was evaluated by immunofluorescence. The immunofluorescence results displayed the high protein expression of synaptophysin as an important neural-specific marker compared to undifferentiated hEnSCs (control group). VAS small molecule promoted the differentiation of motor neurons from hEnSCs by up-regulating the synaptophysin marker and VAS may be use in the near future to help treat SCI.

hEnSCs, SYP, Spinal cord injury (SCI)