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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter 2017

7. Neural stem cells in regenerative medicine

From the book Stem Cells - From Drug to Drug Discovery

  • Seyed Mojtaba Hosseini , Seyyed Mohyeddin Ziaee and Parisa Tabeshmehr

Abstract

Neural stem cells (NSCs), reported for the first time in the early 90s, are stem cells of the central nervous system that are capable of self-renewal and tri-lineage differentiation to form neurons, oligodendrocytes and astrocytes. The existence of NSCs spans from the very early stages of embryonic development to adulthood in NSC niches located in specific regions of the nervous system such as the subventricular zone (SVZ) of the lateral ventricles and the subgranular zone (SGZ) of the dentate gyrus in hippocampus. NSCs express astrocytic properties in all stages of life; they are distinct from regular astrocytes of the nervous system though. The delicately poised dynamics of the microenvironment of NSCs remains instrumental in determining their stemness characteristics such that they respond to minor changes and stimuli by undergoing significant changes in behavior and differentiation status. NSCs have been extensively characterized in vitro and in the experimental animal models for their postengraftment behavior, thus leading to their potential assessment as novel therapeutic modality for treatment of neurodegenerative disorders, i.e. Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as pathologies like spinal cord injuries and strokes. Although the data generated from these studies has been encouraging, further in-depth mechanistic studies are required for regular use in the clinical settings.

© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston
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