Embryonic neural stem cells in a 3D bioassay for trophic stimulation studies.

Progenitors were discovered in the corpus striatum several years ago, but little is known about their proliferation and differentiation. The aim of this study was to analyze embryonic progenitor cells from the corpus striatum using a bioassay with trophic stimulation. Primary cells obtained from brains of rat embryos at E13-14 were dissected from striatum niches and cultured in stem cell media.

Subtractive hybridization identifies genes differentially expressed by olfactory ensheathing cells and neural stem cells.

The in vitro differentiation of embryonic stem cells into glia has received relatively limited attention to date when compared with the interest in the generation of neurons. We are interested in a particular glial phenotype, the aldynoglia, and their differentiation from multipotential neural precursors (MNP), since this type of glia can promote neuronal regeneration. We constructed cDNA libraries from cultures of purified olfactory ensheathing cells (OEC), an aldynoglia cell type, and MNP to perform subtractive hybridization.

Microarray analysis of striatal embryonic stem cells induced to differentiate by ensheathing cell conditioned media.

The mammalian central nervous system contains well-defined regions of plasticity in which cells of the aldynoglia phenotype promote neuronal growth and regeneration. Only now are the factors that regulate the production of new cells from multipotential neural precursors (MNP) starting to be identified. We are interested in understanding how differentiation towards the aldynoglia phenotype is controlled, and to study these events we have induced the differentiation of embryonic MNP towards this phenotype in vitro.