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Biotech / Medical : STEM -- StemCells, Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tyoon who wrote (429)	3/14/2000 4:59:00 PM
From: scaram(o)uche	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 805

>> On the other hand, CTII is a good buy this time anyway. you don't think so? << You're near Cal Tech. Run over to Anderson's lab and poke around? There's always this stuff, combined with the latest work from Uchida et al. J Neurosci 1999 Jul 15;19(14):5990-6005 Site-specific migration and neuronal differentiation of human neural progenitor cells after transplantation in the adult rat brain. Fricker RA, Carpenter MK, Winkler C, Greco C, Gates MA, Bjorklund A Wallenberg Neuroscience Center, Division of Neurobiology, Lund University, S-223 Lund, Sweden. Neural progenitor cells obtained from the embryonic human forebrain were expanded up to 10(7)-fold in culture in the presence of epidermal growth factor, basic fibroblast growth factor, and leukemia inhibitory growth factor. When transplanted into neurogenic regions in the adult rat brain, the subventricular zone, and hippocampus, the in vitro propagated cells migrated specifically along the routes normally taken by the endogenous neuronal precursors: along the rostral migratory stream to the olfactory bulb and within the subgranular zone in the dentate gyrus, and exhibited site-specific neuronal differentiation in the granular and periglomerular layers of the bulb and in the dentate granular cell layer. The cells exhibited substantial migration also within the non-neurogenic region, the striatum, in a seemingly nondirected manner up to approximately 1-1.5 mm from the graft core, and showed differentiation into both neuronal and glial phenotypes. Only cells with glial-like features migrated over longer distances within the mature striatum, whereas the cells expressing neuronal phenotypes remained close to the implantation site. The ability of the human neural progenitors to respond in vivo to guidance cues and signals that can direct their differentiation along multiple phenotypic pathways suggests that they can provide a powerful and virtually unlimited source of cells for experimental and clinical transplantation. Exp Neurol 1999 Aug;158(2):265-78 In vitro expansion of a multipotent population of human neural progenitor cells. Carpenter MK, Cui X, Hu ZY, Jackson J, Sherman S, Seiger A, Wahlberg LU Cell and Molecular Neurobiology, CytoTherapeutics, Inc., Lincoln, Rhode Island, 02865, USA. mcarpenter@geron.com The isolation and expansion of human neural progenitor cells have important potential clinical applications, because these cells may be used as graft material in cell therapies to regenerate tissue and/or function in patients with central nervous system (CNS) disorders. This paper describes a continuously dividing multipotent population of progenitor cells in the human embryonic forebrain that can be propagated in vitro. These cells can be maintained and expanded using a serum-free defined medium containing basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), and epidermal growth factor (EGF). Using these three factors, the cell cultures expand and remain multipotent for at least 1 year in vitro. This period of expansion results in a 10(7)-fold increase of this heterogeneous population of cells. Upon differentiation, they form neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes, the three main phenotypes in the CNS. Moreover, GABA-immunoreactive and tyrosine hydroxylase-immunoreactive neurons can be identified. These results demonstrate the feasibility of long-term in vitro expansion of human neural progenitor cells. The advantages of such a population of neural precursors for allogeneic transplantation include the ability to provide an expandable, well-characterized, defined cell source which can form specific neuronal or glial subtypes. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.