asic1 promotes differentiation of neuroblastoma by negatively regulating notch signaling pathway in neurons upregulation of notch activity either inhibits neurite extension or causes retraction of neurites conversely inhibition of notch1 facilitates neurite extension acidsensing ion channels asics are a family of protongated cation channels which play critical roles in synaptic plasticity learning and memory and spine morphogenesis our pilot proteomics data from asic1a knock out mice implicated that asic1a may play a role in regulating notch signaling therefore we explored whether or not asic1a regulates neurite growth during neuronal development through notch signaling in this study we determined the effects of asic1a on neurite growth in a mouse neuroblastoma cell line ns20y cells by modulating asic1a expression we also determined the relationship between asic1a and notch signaling on neuronal differentiation our results showed that downregulation of asic1a in ns20y cells inhibits cptcamp induced neurite growth while over expression of asic1a promotes its growth in addition downregulation of asic1a increased the expression of notch1 and its target gene survivin while inhibitor of notch significantly prevented the neurite extension induced by asic1a in ns20y cells these data indicate that notch1 signaling may be required for asic1amediated neurite growth and neuronal differentiation