eng Oriental Scientific Publishing Company Biomedical and Pharmacology Journal 0974-6242 2017-06-20 10 2 595 605 10.13005/bpj/1146 15127 article Azam Asemi Rad 1 Mohammad Hasan Heidari 1 Abbas Aliaghaei 1 Mehdi Eskandarian Broujeni 3 Amir Shojaei 4 Hojjat-Allah Abbaszadeh 2 Anatomy and cell biology department, School of medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Hearing disorders research center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Stem cells and regenerative medicine, Faculty of medical biotechnology, National institute of genetic engineering and biotechnology, Tehran, Iran. Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. Molecular Medicine Research Center, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran; Department of Physiology, faculty of medicine, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran. Nowadays, cell replacement using stem cells has been considered as an important potential therapy for treatment of Parkinson’s disease. Since the production of functional dopaminergic neurons is the first step in cell-replacement therapy, herein, we aimed to develop a high efficiency method to generate dopaminergic neurons from adipose derived stem cells (ADSCs) obtained from the adult adipose tissue. ADSCs were isolated and treated with growth factors for 2 weeks. Next, immunoreactivity for neuronal markers nestin, β-tubulin3, and microtubule-associated protein 2 and dopaminergic specific marker tyrosin hydroxylase was evaluated. Moreover, mRNA expression nestin, MAP2, PITX3, TH and KCNH5 was measured using quantitative real time PCR. Electrophysiological properties and ability of dopamine secretion were evaluated using current clamp and HPLC methods Our data. Revealed that ADSCs showed the morphological changes following neuronal induction after 14 weeks. Furthermore, ADSCs-derived dopaminergic neurons were immunopositive for neuronal and dopaminergic-specific markers. In addition, mRNA expression of nestin, MAP2, PITX3, TH and KCNH5 significantly increased in ADSCs-derived dopaminergic neurons. Finally, electrophysiological results confirmed that these neurons are able to excitation and they could produce action potential. Moreover, interestingly, HPLC analysis indicated that this neuronal cells have capacity of dopamine production and secretion that was in line with over-expression of TH enzyme in these cells. Although we provided a collection of data about the functional dopaminergic neurons derived from ADSCs, further in vivo studies are required to confirm the suitability of these dopaminergic cells for cell replacement in disorder related to dopaminergic neurons lesions. https://biomedpharmajournal.org/vol10no2/in-vitro-differentiation-of-adipose-derived-stem-cells-into-functional-dopaminergic-neurons/ dopamine Parkinson disease neural Stem cell   tyrosine hydroxylase