Figure 2.

PPARβ potential role in neural cell differentiation during development. PPARβ is expressed in the embryo and in the differentiating cells of the CNS and plays important role for the maintenance and/or differentiation of neural stem cells (NSC). PPARβ maintains NSC in an undifferentiated proliferative status [45]. Once the NSC cells have started to differentiate, PPARβ could play a role in (1) neuronal differentiation, inducing the morphological characteristics and the gene expression patterns of neuronal cells, (2) promoting the oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPC) differentiation [46], strongly expressing PPARβ [47], to mature oligodendrocytes [7]. In promoting differentiation, PPARβ also influences cell cycle and proliferation rate. Up to today no role has been clearly established for PPARβ in astrocyte differentiation. (↑ Activation in red, ⊥ Repression in blue).