For both ecologists and physiologists, foliar physioecology as a function of spatially and temporally variable environmental factors such as sunlight exposure within a tree crown is important for understanding whole tree physiology and for predicting ecosystem carbon balance and productivity. Hence, we studied concentrations of nitrogen (N), non-structural carbohydrates (NSC = soluble sugars + ...

The adult central nervous system (CNS) of the zebrafish, owing to its enrichment in constitutive neurogenic niches, is becoming an increasingly used model to address fundamental questions pertaining to adult neural stem cell (NSC) biology, adult neurogenesis and neuronal repair. Studies conducted in several CNS territories (notably the telencephalon, retina, midbrain, cerebellum and spinal cord...

Recent progress in neural stem cell- (NSC-) based tumor-targeted gene therapy showed that NSC vectors expressing an artificially engineered viral fusogenic protein, VSV-G H162R, could cause tumor cell death specifically under acidic tumor microenvironment by syncytia formation; however, the killing efficiency still had much room to improve. In the view that coexpression of another antitumoral g...

Neural stem cells (NSCs) have a high potency for differentiation to neurons and glial cells for replacement of damaged cells and paracrine effects for the regeneration and remyelination of host axons. Dental pulp is known to have a potential to differentiate into neural-like cells; therefore, dental pulp may be used as an autologous cell source for neural repair. In this study, we selectively e...

Transcriptional regulation is a critical mechanism in the birth, specification, and differentiation of granule neurons in the adult hippocampus. One of the first negative-acting transcriptional regulators implicated in vertebrate development is repressor element 1-silencing transcription/neuron-restrictive silencer factor (REST/NRSF)--thought to regulate hundreds of neuron-specific genes--yet i...

Neuroblastoma stem cells (NSCs) can cause drug resistance and tumor recurrence. This study aimed to enhance the lytic effect of dendritic cells (DCs) co-cultured with cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells. NSCs were obtained by suspension culture, and DC-CIK cells were loaded with extracted NSC membrane-based microparticles (MMPs) before evaluating the lytic effect of DC-CIK cells on NSCs. After ...

Objective: We investigated whether neural stem cells (NSC) with transgenic expression of human nerve growth factor (hNGF) transplanted into the brain could offer a therapeutic option for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Methods: We infused okadaic acid into rat lateral ventricles to establish a chronic AD animal model. In addition, NSC were stably transduced with hNGF and enhanced gre...

Neural stem cells (NSCs) yield both neuronal and glial progeny, but their differentiation potential toward multiple region-specific neuron types remains remarkably poor. In contrast, embryonic stem cell (ESC) progeny readily yield region-specific neuronal fates in response to appropriate developmental signals. Here we demonstrate prospective and clonal isolation of neural rosette cells (termed ...