Multiple sclerosis (MS) and its animal model, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), are chronic inflammatory demyelinating disorders of central nervous system (CNS). While the cause is unclear, the fundamental mechanism is thought to be destruction of myelin sheaths of neurons through immune system. One of the approaches being proposed in EAE therapy is neural stem cells (NSCs) trans...

Background: We have recently shown that human embryonic (hESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) can differentiate into advanced spermatogenic cells including round spermatids by in vitro culture (Easley et al., Direct differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells into haploid spermatogenic cells. Cell Reports 2, 440-446 2012) and also, in collaboration, that rhesus spermatogonial ...

Since the discovery of neural stem cells in the mammalian brain, there has been significant interest in understanding their contribution to tissue homeostasis at both the cellular and molecular level. Wnt/β-catenin signaling is crucial for development of the central nervous system and has been implicated in stem cell maintenance in multiple tissues. Based on this, we hypothesized that the Wnt p...

BACKGROUND The precise molecular changes that occur when a neural stem (NS) cell switches from a programme of self-renewal to commit towards a specific lineage are not currently well understood. However it is clear that control of gene expression plays an important role in this process. DNA methylation, a mark of transcriptionally silent chromatin, has similarly been shown to play important rol...

We recently isolated stem cells derived from the brain of a bovine fetus, utilizing a particular mechanical separation method. After improving our experimental conditions, we obtained neural stem cells using an optimized culture medium system. The cells were expanded, established in continuous cell culture and used for immunofluorescence cytochemistry. RT-PCR showed that embryonic neural stem c...

We examined the gene expression and DNA methylation of 49 human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) and 10 human embryonic stem cells and found overlapped variations in gene expression and DNA methylation in the two types of human pluripotent stem cell lines. Comparisons of the in vitro neural differentiation of 40 hiPSCs and 10 human embryonic stem cells showed that seven hiPSC clones reta...

Mesenchymal cell migration and neurite outgrowth are mediated in part by binding of cell surface beta 1,4-galactosyltransferase (GalTase) to N-linked oligosaccharides within the E8 domain of laminin. In this study, we determined whether cell surface GalTase functions during neural crest cell migration and neural development in vivo using antibodies raised against affinity-purified chicken serum...

Neurogenesis persists in adult mammals in specific brain areas, known as neurogenic niches. Adult neurogenesis is highly dynamic and is modulated by multiple physiological stimuli and pathological states. There is a strong interest in understanding how this process is regulated, particularly since active neuronal production has been demonstrated in both the hippocampus and the subventricular zo...

All the neurons and glial cells of the central nervous system are generated from the neuroepithelial cells in the walls of the embryonic neural tube, the 'embryonic neural stem cells'. The stem cells seem to be equivalent to the so-called 'radial glial cells', which for many years had been regarded as a specialized type of glial cell. These radial cells generate different classes of neurons in ...