Insights in spatio-temporal characterization of human fetal neural stem cells.

Insights in spatio-temporal characterization of human fetal neural stem cells. Exp Neurol. 2017 Jan 25;: Authors: Martín-Ibáñez R, Guardia I, Pardo M, Herranz C, Zietlow R, Vinh NN, Rosser A, Canals JM Abstract Primary human fetal cells have been used in clinical trials of cell replacement therapy for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders such as Huntington's disease (HD). However, human fetal primary cells are scarce and difficult to work with and so a renewable source of cells is sought. Human fetal neural stem cells (hfNSCs) can be generated from human fetal tissue, but little is known about the differences between hfNSCs obtained from different developmental stages and brain areas. In the present work we characterized hfNSCs, grown as neurospheres, obtained from three developmental stages: 4-5, 6-7 and 8-9weeks post conception (wpc) and four brain areas: forebrain, cortex, whole ganglionic eminence (WGE) and cerebellum. We observed that, as fetal brain development proceeds, the number of neural precursors is diminished and post-mitotic cells are increased. In turn, primary cells obtained from older embryos are more sensitive to the dissociation process, their viability is diminished and they present lower proliferation ratios compared to younger embryos. However, independently of the developmental stage of derivation proliferation ratios were very low in all cases. Improvements in the expansion rates were achieved by me...
Source: Experimental Neurology - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Exp Neurol Source Type: research