Membrane biophysics define neuron and astrocyte progenitors in the neural lineage.

ABSTRACT: Neural stem and progenitor cells (NSPCs) are heterogeneous populations of self-renewing stem cells and more committed progenitors that differentiate into neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. Accurately identifying and characterizing the different progenitor cells in this lineage has continued to be a challenge for the field. We found previously that populations of NSPCs with more neurogenic progenitors (NPs) can be distinguished from those with more astrogenic progenitors (APs) by their inherent biophysical properties, specifically the electrophysiological property of whole cell membrane capacitance, which we characterized with dielectrophoresis (DEP). Here, we hypothesize that inherent electrophysiological properties are sufficient to define NPs and APs and test this by determining

SUBMITTER: Nourse JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5367858 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature