Conflict of Interest None declared.
Traditionally, both astrocytes and microglia have been thought to act as supportive cells in the central nervous system (CNS). It is now widely appreciated that astrocytes and microglia are not only involved in virtually every aspects

of neural function in the mature brain (Fields and Stevens-Graham 2002) but also play important roles during CNS development. For example, both astrocytes and microglia are involved in neuronal differentiation, migration, programmed cell death, neurite growth, axon guidance, as well as synaptic formation (Deverman and Patterson 2009). On the other hand, oligodendroglia or oligodendrocyte (OL) appears to resemble more closely to neuron rather Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical than to astrocyte or microglia, in terms of developmental programs and susceptibility to injury. For instance, OL progenitor cells (OPCs) and neurons arise from similar regions of the neuroepithelium, and their fate determination is driven by similar transcription factors (Bradl and Lassmann 2010). Both OPCs and neurons are born in Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical excess, but their numbers are reduced dramatically through programmed cell death (Barres et al.1992; Buss et al. 2006). As for cell survival, certain neurotrophic factors are critically involved Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical for both types of cells, while most of those factors are known to be secreted by astrocytes and microglia (Althaus et al. 2008). In addition

to these similarities in developmental features, both neuron and Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical OLs are susceptible to certain insults including glutamate excitotoxicity, inflammatory cytokines, and reactive oxidative stress (Leviton and Gressens 2007; Volpe et al. 2008; Volpe 2009). At present, OL lineage development is well characterized, especially in rodents (Miller 2002; Emery 2010a). Initially, OPCs proliferate in regions where they are generated from multipotent neural progenitor cells, and then migrate to their destination. To ensure that the number of OPCs matches with their corresponding axons, excessive Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical OPCs are eliminated through apoptosis, and the survived cells then undergo terminal differentiation and start

to myelinate axons. One of the important features of OL development is that it is largely controlled by extracellular cytokines, most of which those are known to be secreted by astrocytes and microglia. Although extensive studies have been conducted to understand the role of individual cytokine on OL development, it is most likely that OLs are selleck exposed to multiple cytokines/growth factors in vivo, thus their biological responses depend on the types of the final signaling pathways activated. However, this is very difficult to assess in vivo. The conditioned medium from astrocytes or microglia offers some aspects of the in vivo environment and may provide information to better elucidate the roles of astrocytes and microglia during OL development.