But one glimpse came in 2013, when scientists transplanted
human neural stem cells into the brains of mice which had damage in regions responsible for learning and memory.
In a separate but related study, scientists this week also announced that they successfully reversed Parkinson - like symptoms in several monkeys by transplanting
human neural stem cells into their brains.
Not exact matches
Scientists headed by Dr. Stevens Rehen differentiated
human induced pluripotent
stem (iPS)
cells into neural stem cells and
into further complex tridimensional structures, known as neurospheres and brain organoids.
Intrigued, the team inserted a
human version of L1
into rat
neural stem cells, along with a marker that would make the
cells glow green whenever L1 made a jump.
Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Japan have succeeded in inducing
human embryonic
stem cells to self - organize
into a three - dimensional structure similar to the cerebellum, providing tantalizing clues in the quest to recreate
neural structures in the laboratory.
A normally functioning adult
human brain has the ability to partially replenish or repair itself through neurogenesis, the proliferation and development of adult
neural progenitor /
stem cells (aNPCs)
into new nerve
cells.
The self - renewable capacity of these
cells, their ability to differentiate
into several tissue progenitors (
neural, mesenchymal
stem cells...), and the possibility to work with mutated
cell lines define
human stem cells as a good basis for screening compounds libraries in order to discover new potential drugs for monogenic diseases.
Recently, mouse
neural stem cells (NSCs) have been shown capable of reprogramming
into a pluripotent state by forced expression of Oct3 / 4 and Klf4; however it has been unknown whether this same strategy could apply to
human NSCs, which would result in more relevant pluripotent
stem cells for modeling
human disease.
Human embryonic
stem cells can turn
into a variety of different
cell types, including (A) gut, (B)
neural cells, (C) bone marrow
cells, (D) cartilage, (E) muscle, and (F) kidney
cells.
Following this, they demonstrated that
neural progenitors from embryonic
stem cells could differentiate themselves
into neurons in rat brains presenting lesions similar to those observed in
humans.
Finally, we used this approach to encapsulate
human Neural Stem Cells (hNSC) derived from
human Induced Pluripotent
Stem Cells (hIPSC), which were further differentiated
into neurons within the capsules with negligible loss of viability.
On the other hand, ES
cells and
cells differentiating
into endoderm and mesoderm lineages from ES
cells express OCT - 4 in mice and
humans [66], and SSEA1 expression is found in other type of
cells including
neural stem cells and mesenchymal
stem cells [67], [68].