Chemokines and cytokines, primarily known for their roles in the immune and inflammatory response, have also been identified as key components of the neurogenic niche where they are involved in the modulation of neural stem cells proliferation and differentiation. However, a complete understanding of the functional role played in neural differentiation and a comprehensive profiling of these secreted molecules is lacking. By exploiting the multiplexing capability of magnetic beads-based immunoassays, we have investigated the changes of the expression levels of a set of chemokines and cytokines released from the pluripotent neural cell line mes-c-myc A following its differentiation from a proliferating (A1P) toward a neural (A1D) phenotype. We found a subset of molecules exclusively released from A1P, whereas others were differentially detected in A1P and A1D conditioned media. Among them, we identified Chemokine Ligand 2 (MCP-1/CCL2) as a pro-neurogenic factor, able to affects neuronal differentiation of A1 cells as well as of neuroblasts from primary cultures and to induce the elongation and/or formation of neuritic processes. Altogether, data are suggestive of a main role played by the CCL2/CCR2 signaling pathway and in general of the network of secreted cytokines/chemokines in the differentiation of neural progenitor cells toward a neural fate.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved