Fast and Efficient Neural Conversion of Human Hematopoietic Cells

Abstract

A major challenge in regenerative medicine is the generation of functionally effective target cells to replace or repair damaged tissues. The finding that most somatic cells can be directly converted into cells of another lineage by the expression of specific transcription factors has paved the way to novel applications. Induced neurons (iNs) represent an alternative source of neurons for disease modeling, drug screening, and potentially, for cell replacement therapy. This unit describes methods for the efficient conversion of blood cells into iNs, including protocols to isolate cord blood CD133+ cells, infect them with Sendai virus vectors that express SOX2 and c‐MYC, and differentiate the infected cells (PB‐MNCs) into mature neurons. A method to reprogram peripheral blood mononuclear cells into iNs is also described. Support protocols describe how to culture rat astrocytes and characterize the electrophysiology of iNs. © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The therapeutic prospects and challenges of human neural stem cells for the treatment of Alzheimer's Disease

“…Over the past decade, achievements in direct reprogramming have provided genuine opportunities to generate unlimited and lineage-specific human NSCs. The ectopic expression of defined transcription factors with or without small molecules has successfully converted human somatic cells, including fibroblasts (Kumar et al, 2012;Lu et al, 2013;Ring et al, 2012;Zhu et al, urine cells et al, 2014), mononuclear cells from both cord blood (Bruzos-Cidon et al, 2016;Liao et al, 2015;Tang et al, 2016) and adult peripheral blood (Dowey et al, 2012;Zhang et al, 2019), into iNSCs. The iNSCs have been shown to capture the key features of adult NSCs in the human brain, indicating that they might possess a therapeutic potential that rivals adult NSCs.…”