Lactoferrin induced neuronal differentiation: A boon for brain tumours.

The cumulative treatments of bovine lactoferrin (bLf) and iron saturated lactoferrin (Fe-bLf) in the neuroblastoma cells showed neuronal differentiating actions evident with the expression of specific differentiating markers, β-tubulin III and neurofilaments. The protein treatments also showed lowered endogenous survivin that is responsible for cell proliferation and the miRNA 584 and miRNA214-3p, required for differentiation. Further, bLf adopted the PI3K signalling predominantly, while Fe-bLf involved both the PI3K and ERK signalling for inducing differentiation. In conclusion, this is the first study to report the neuronal differentiating effects of milk proteins and future studies are warranted for clinical application.