Retinoic acid enhances histamine content and H1 receptor expression in human neuroblastoma cell line Paju.

BACKGROUND: A human neuroblastoma cell line (Paju) was induced by retinoic acid (RA) to differentiate into neuron-like cells. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We studied the expression and the possible role of histamine receptors H1 and H2 in retinoic-acid mediated differentiation by semiquantitative RT-PCR. We studied the effect of exogeneously added RA on the morphological change of the human neuroblastoma cell line and the differentiation was followed by vimentine, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and neurofilament (NF) immunostaining. We monitored the change of the histidine decarboxylase (HDC) expression and the histamine content during the RA treatment by immunoblot and flow cytometry methods. RESULTS: Our data showed that H1 and H2 histamine receptors are present on Paju cells. Ten nM RA markedly increased the H1 receptor expression of these cells, while the H2 expression was unchanged. CONCLUSION: In the RA-treated Paju cells, the histamine content increased compared to the untreated cells, suggesting that neuroblastoma-derived histamine is involved in the regulation of RA-induced in vitro differentiation by H1 receptors.