Background: The inhalation anesthetics, owning the character of lipophilic, could permeate through the placental barrier and the blood-brain barrier rapidly, which draws increasing public attention on the embryotoxicity and neurotoxicity of inhalation anesthetic in the developing fetus. The potential toxicity of commonly used inhalation anesthetic isoflurane on the human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) is becoming a significant health issue.
Methods: Human ESCs which is derived from the inner cell mass (ICM) were treated with 2% isoflurane for 6h. At the same time, the control group was untreated. We observe the growth and detect the mRNA levels of stemness markers of ESCs in two groups.
Result: Compared with control group, the self-renewal capacity of human ESCs in isoflurane group was distinctly inhibited. Moreover, cells treated with isoflurane appeared differentiation prior to the control group.
Conclusion: The observed phenomena suggest that isoflurane inhibits the self-renewal capacity of human embryonic stem cells derived from ICM and makes them differentiation in advance.