Enhancement of BDNF production by co-cultivation of human neuroblastoma and fibroblast cells

It has been proved that co-cultivation of human neuroblastoma cells and human fibrolast cells can enhance nerve cell growth and the production of BDNF in perfusion cultivation. In batch co-cultivation, maximum cell density was increased up to 1.76×10⁶ viable cells/mL from 9×10⁵ viable cells/mL of only neuroblastoma cell culture. The growth of neuroblastoma cells was greatly improved by culturing both nerve and fibroblast cells in a perfusion process, maintaining 1.5×10⁶ viable cells/mL, which was much higher than that from fed-batch cultivation. The nerve cell growth was greatly enhanced in both fed-batch and perfusion cultivations while the growth of fibroblast cells was not. It strongly implies that the factors secreted from, human fibroblast cells and/or the environments of co-culture system can enhance both cell growth and BDNF secretion. Specific BDNF production rate was not enhanced in co-cultures; however, the production period was increased as the cell growth was lengthened in the co-culture case. Competitive growth between nerve cells and fibroblast cells was not observed in all cases, showing no changes of fibroblast cell growth and only enhancement of the neuroblastoma cell growth and overall BDNF production. It was also found that the perfusion cultivation was the most appropriate process for cultivating two cell lines simultaneously in a bioreactor.