Neural stem cells are reported to lie in a vascular niche, but there is no direct evidence for a functional relationship between the stem cells and blood vessel component cells. We show that endothelial cells but not vascular smooth muscle cells release soluble factors that stimulate the self-renewal of neural stem cells, inhibit their differentiation, and enhance their neuron production. Both ...

During development of the central nervous system, a small pool of stem cells and progenitors generate the vast neural diversity required for neural circuit formation and behavior. Neural stem and progenitor cells often generate different progeny in response to the same signaling cue (e.g. Notch or Hedgehog), including no response at all. How does stem cell competence to respond to signaling cue...

Lysine-specific demethylase 1 (LSD1) functions as a transcriptional coregulator by modulating histone methylation. Its role in neural stem cells has not been studied. We show here for the first time that LSD1 serves as a key regulator of neural stem cell proliferation. Inhibition of LSD1 activity or knockdown of LSD1 expression led to dramatically reduced neural stem cell proliferation. LSD1 is...

The adult mouse forebrain, which exhibits substantial ongoing cell genesis, contains self-renewing multipotent neural stem cells that respond to epidermal growth factor (EGF), but the adult spinal cord, which exhibits limited cell genesis, does not. Spinal cord development is a process characterized by defined periods of cell histogenesis. Thus, in the present study we asked whether EGF-respons...

Figure 1. Neuronal-glia ineractions during intestinal inflammation and neural stem cell transfer. ATP, adenosine triphosphate; NO, nitric oxide; P2X7R, purinergic receptor P2X, ligand gated ion channel, 7. Cneurons in the human body. For more than a century, physicians and scientists have argued that glia provide the fundamental infrastructure and life support to neurons, without which the brai...

Generating neural stem cells and neurons from reprogrammed human astrocytes is a potential strategy for neurological repair. Here we show dedifferentiation of human cortical astrocytes into the neural stem/progenitor phenotype to obtain progenitor and mature cells with a neural fate. Ectopic expression of the reprogramming factors OCT4, SOX2, or NANOG into astrocytes in specific cytokine/cultur...

Stem cell therapies seem to be an appropriate tool for the treatment of a variety of diseases, especially when a substantial cell loss leads to a severe clinical impact. This is the case in most neuronal cell losses. Unfortunately, adequate neural stem cell sources are hard to find and current alternatives, such as induced programmed stem cells, still have incalculable risks. Evidence of neurog...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS). Inflammation caused by immune cells destroy the myelin and then axon. CNS failure to complete repair results in permanent disabilities. Some types of stem cells have special potentials to repair these injuries and even cure MS. Neural crest stem cells with a mutual origin with CNS and the ability of differen...

Stroke is one of the leading causes of morbidity and disability. There is no definite treatment for brain stroke. Stem cell therapy is useful for treating brain stroke. Mesenchymal stem cells and neural stem cells can be used to treat stroke. In this review, we explained the benefits of mesenchymal stem cells and neural stem cells for stem cell therapy and the advantages of combination stem cel...