Functional neurons and melanocytes induced from immortal lines of postnatal neural crest-like stem cells.

ABSTRACT: Stem cells, that is, cells that can both reproduce themselves and differentiate into functional cell types, attract much interest as potential aids to healing and disease therapy. Embryonic neural crest is pluripotent and generates the peripheral nervous system, melanocytes, and some connective tissues. Neural-crest-related stem cells have been reported previously in postnatal skin: committed melanocytic stem cells in the hair follicle, and pluripotent cell types from the hair follicle and papilla that can produce various sets of lineages. Here we describe novel pluripotent neural crest-like stem cells from neonatal mouse epidermis, with different potencies, isolated as 3 independent immortal lines. Using alternative regulatory factors, they could be converted to large numbers of either Sc

SUBMITTER: Sviderskaya EV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2735356 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature