Sheng Li Xue Bao
February 2025
Neuronal reprogramming is an innovative technique for converting non-neuronal somatic cells into neurons that can be used to replace lost or damaged neurons, providing a potential effective therapeutic strategy for central nervous system (CNS) injuries or diseases. Transcription factors have been used to induce neuronal reprogramming, while their reprogramming efficiency is relatively low, and the introduction of exogenous genes may result in host gene instability or induce gene mutation. Therefore, their future clinical application may be hindered by these safety concerns.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe primary culture of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) provides an indispensable tool for characterizing their biological properties and myelin repair potential. However, the current OPC preparation methods are mainly limited to rat tissues, and it remains a substantial challenge for replicating the primary culture from mouse tissues to generate large quantities of high-quality OPCs. Here, we describe a protocol to successfully establish highly enriched OPC cultures from the cerebral cortex of mice at the age of neonatal 3 days.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the mammalian central nervous system (CNS), astrocytes are the ubiquitous glial cells that have complex morphological and molecular characteristics. These fascinating cells play essential neurosupportive and homeostatic roles in the healthy CNS and undergo morphological, molecular, and functional changes to adopt so-called 'reactive' states in response to CNS injury or disease. In recent years, interest in astrocyte research has increased dramatically and some new biological features and roles of astrocytes in physiological and pathological conditions have been discovered thanks to technological advances.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Ectopic expression of transcription factor-mediated in vivo neuronal reprogramming provides promising strategy to compensate for neuronal loss, while its further clinical application may be hindered by delivery and safety concerns. As a novel and attractive alternative, small molecules may offer a non-viral and non-integrative chemical approach for reprogramming cell fates. Recent definitive evidences have shown that small molecules can convert non-neuronal cells into neurons in vitro.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTopoisomerase IIA (TOP2a) has traditionally been known as an important nuclear enzyme that resolves entanglements and relieves torsional stress of DNA double strands. However, its function in genomic transcriptional regulation remains largely unknown, especially during adult neurogenesis. Here, we show that TOP2a is preferentially expressed in neurogenic niches in the brain of adult mice, such as the subventricular zone (SVZ).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDirect reprogramming of astrocytes into neurons opens up a new avenue for neuroregenerative medicine. However, the poor understanding of the molecular mechanisms underpinning the latent neurogenic program in astrocytes has largely restricted this strategy towards safe and effective clinical therapies. Immunocytochemistry, immunohistochemistry, western blotting, qRT-PCR, gene knockdown and fate-mapping are performed to analyze the role of NOTCH1 signaling in regulation of the latent neurogenic program in reactive astrocytes after spinal cord injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlioblastoma (GBM) is the most lethal primary tumor in the human brain and lacks favorable treatment options. Sex differences in the outcome of GBM are broadly acknowledged, but the underlying molecular mechanisms remain largely unknown. To identify the sex-dependent critical genes in the progression of GBM, raw data from several microarray datasets with the same array platform were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNG2-glia are a major type of glial cells that are widely distributed in the central nervous system (CNS). Under physiological conditions, they mainly differentiate into oligodendrocytes and contribute to the myelination of axons, so they are generally called oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. Emerging evidence suggests that NG2-glia not only act as the precursors of oligodendrocytes but also possess many other biological properties and functions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCell Death Dis
September 2019
Direct conversion of readily available non-neural cells from patients into induced neurons holds great promise for neurological disease modeling and cell-based therapy. Olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) is a unique population of glia in olfactory nervous system. Based on the regeneration-promoting properties and the relative clinical accessibility, OECs are attracting increasing attention from neuroscientists as potential therapeutic agents for use in neural repair.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDirect conversion of non-neural cells into induced neurons holds great promise for brain repair. As the most common malignant tumor in the central nervous system, glioma is currently incurable due to its exponential growth and invasive behavior. Given that neurons are irreversible postmitotic cells, reprogramming glioma cells into terminally differentiated neuron-like cells represents a potential approach to inhibit brain tumor development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAstrocytes become reactive in response to spinal cord injury (SCI) and ultimately form a histologically apparent glial scar at the lesion site. It is controversial whether astrocytic scar is detrimental or beneficial to the axonal regeneration and SCI repair. Therefore, much effort has focused on understanding the functions of reactive astrocytes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStem Cell Reports
February 2019
The adult CNS has poor ability to replace degenerated neurons following injury or disease. Recently, direct reprogramming of astrocytes into induced neurons has been proposed as an innovative strategy toward CNS repair. As a cell population that shows high diversity on physiological properties and functions depending on their spatiotemporal distribution, however, whether the astrocyte heterogeneity affect neuronal reprogramming is not clear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTROY is a component of the Nogo receptor complex and plays the key role in neuronal survival, migration, and differentiation. Here, we show the up-regulation of TROY in human glioma tissues and cells. Inhibition of TROY expression slowed glioma development in vivo and in vitro.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Neural stem cells (NSCs) have unique biological characteristics such as continuous proliferation and multipotential differentiation, providing a possible method for restoration of central nervous system (CNS) function after injury or disease. NSCs and astrocytes share many similar biological properties including cell morphology and molecular expression and can trans-differentiate into each other under certain conditions. However, characteristic genes specifically expressed by NSCs have not been well described.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe neural stem cells (NSCs) of the subventricular zone (SVZ) reside within a specialized niche critical for neurogenesis. Hemopexin, a plasma glycoprotein, has been extensively studied as a heme scavenger at the systemic level. However, little is known about its function in the central nervous system, especially in neurogenesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpinal cord injury (SCI) is a challenging medical problem in the field of neurology, showing high incidence rate, disability rate, treatment cost and low-aged trend. Despite the clinical application of drug intervention, surgical treatment and modern rehabilitation training, no ideal curative effect has been achieved. Therefore, future study is necessary to clarify detailed pathological mechanism of SCI and identify the potential target cells for therapeutic intervention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs a major class of glial cells, astrocytes have been indicated to play multi-roles in physiological and pathological brain. Astrocyte cultures derived from postnatal mouse brains have been extensively used to characterize their biological properties. However, the inability to culture adult mouse primary astrocytes has long stymied studies of function in adult brain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlial cells, including astrocytes, oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs), NG2-glia, etc, are broadly distributed throughout the central nervous system (CNS). Also, it has been well known that glial cells play multi-roles in physiological and pathological processes in the CNS, such as maintaining homeostasis, providing neurotrophins for neurons and regulating neural signal transmission. Recently, increasing evidence showed that glial cells may also function as neural stem/progenitor cells and contribute to adult neurogenesis or neuroregeneration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough the adult mammalian spinal cord lacks intrinsic neurogenic capacity, glial cells can be reprogrammed in vivo to generate neurons after spinal cord injury (SCI). How this reprogramming process is molecularly regulated, however, is not clear. Through a series of in vivo screens, we show here that the p53-dependent pathway constitutes a critical checkpoint for SOX2-mediated reprogramming of resident glial cells in the adult mouse spinal cord.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAstrocytes, the predominant cell type that are broadly distributed in the brain and spinal cord, play key roles in maintaining homeostasis of the central nerve system (CNS) in physiological and pathological conditions. Increasing evidence indicates that astrocytes are a complex colony with heterogeneity on morphology, gene expression, function and many other aspects depending on their spatio-temporal distribution and activation level. In pathological conditions, astrocytes differentially respond to all kinds of insults, including injury and disease, and participate in the neuropathological process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSheng Li Xue Bao
February 2016
Topoisomerases are nuclear enzymes that regulate the overwinding or underwinding of DNA helix during replication, transcription, recombination, repair, and chromatin remodeling. These enzymes perform topological transformations by providing a transient DNA break, through which the unique problems of DNA entanglement that occur owing to unwinding and rewinding of the DNA helix can be resolved. In mammals, topoisomerases are classified into two types, type I topoisomerase (Top1) and type II topoisomerase (Top2), depending on the number of strands cut in one round of action.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlial cell response to injury has been well documented in the pathogenesis after traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injury (SCI). Although microglia, the resident macrophages in the central nervous system (CNS), are responsible for clearing debris and toxic substances, excessive activation of these cells will lead to exacerbated secondary damage by releasing a variety of inflammatory and cytotoxic mediators and ultimately influence the subsequent repair after CNS injury. In fact, inhibition of microgliosis represents a therapeutic strategy for CNS trauma.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpinal cord injury (SCI) leads to irreversible neuronal loss and glial scar formation, which ultimately result in persistent neurological dysfunction. Cellular regeneration could be an ideal approach to replenish the lost cells and repair the damage. However, the adult spinal cord has limited ability to produce new neurons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe olfactory system is an unusual tissue in which olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) are continuously replaced throughout the life of mammals. Clearance of the apoptotic ORNs corpses is a fundamental process serving important functions in the regulation of olfactory nerve turnover and regeneration. However, little is known about the underlying mechanisms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) are a unique type of glia that are responsible for the myelination of the central nervous system. OPC migration is important for myelin formation during central nervous system development and repair. However, the precise extracellular and intracellular mechanisms that regulate OPC migration remain elusive.
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