BACKGROUND Nestin was reported to directly contribute to cell proliferation and the intermediate filament protein was detected in vascular smooth muscle cells. In experimental type I diabetes, nestin downregulation in the heart was identified as an incipient pathophysiological event. The following study tested the hypothesis that dysregulation of nestin expression in vascular smooth muscle cell...

PURPOSE It has been hypothesized that brain tumors are derived from stem cell or transiently dividing precursor transformation. Furthermore, c-Jun NH(2)-terminal kinases (JNKs) have been involved in gliomagenesis. This study analyzes stem cell marker nestin and JNK expression in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and peritumor tissue and assesses their possible prognostic implications. EXPERIMENTA...

The class VI intermediate filament protein nestin has been generally considered as a specific marker for neural precursor cells or developing muscles. In the prenatal developing rat central nervous system (CNS), we localized immunoreactivity for the nestin in blood vessels. Although the widespread nestin expression in cerebral blood vessels persisted in early postnatal periods, it was down-regu...

Tumor angiogenesis is regarded as a hallmark of cancer and provides an important target for therapy. Nestin is an intermediate filament protein (IF) originally recognized as a neural stem cell marker. Development and progression of cancer requires sustained angiogenesis, dependent on the proliferation and migration of endothelial cells which seem to be better portrayed by nestin expression in v...

We present a new strategy for the differentiation of embryonic stem (ES) cells into insulin-producing cells via a multi-step process without selection and induction of nestin-positive cells. During ES cell differentiation, transcript levels of genes characteristic of early and mature beta cells including Pdx1, Pax4, insulin and islet amyloid pancreatic peptide are up regulated. Islet-like clust...

Based on the expression of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), a recent hypothesis considered stem or progenitor cells in the adult hippocampus to be a type of astrocyte. In a complementary approach, we used transgenic mice expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) under the promoter for nestin, an intermediate filament present in progenitor cells, to demonstrate astrocytic features in nes...

Patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) are at high risk to develop a relapse despite multimodal therapy. Assumedly, glioma stem cells (GSCs) are responsible for treatment resistance of GBM. Identification of specific GSC markers may help to develop targeted therapies. Here, we performed expression analyses of stem cell (ABCG2, CD44, CD95, CD133, ELF4, Nanog, and Nestin) as well as differen...

Neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of the adult mammalian hippocampus has been proven in a series of studies, but the differentiation process toward newborn neurons is still unclear. In addition to the immunohistochemical study, electrophysiological membrane recordings of precursor cells could provide an alternative view to address this differentiation process. In this study, we performed green ...

Multipotential stem cells in the neural tube give rise to the different neuronal cell types found in the brain. Abrupt changes in intermediate filament gene expression accompany this transition out of the precursor state: transcription of the intermediate filament nestin is replaced by that of the neurofilaments. In order to identify human neural precursor cells, and to learn more about the evo...

PURPOSE To investigate the distribution of the intermediate filament (IF) proteins desmin, vimentin, and nestin in human extraocular muscles (EOMs). METHODS Healthy adult EOM samples were serially sectioned (5 and 1 μm) and processed for immunohistochemistry, with specific antibodies (Abs) against desmin, vimentin, and nestin and different myosin heavy chains (MyHCs), including the newly char...