Characteristics of motor neuron differentiation from stem cells / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

Studies have shown that embryonic stem cells and neural stem ceils could be induced to differentiate into motor neurons by adding inducing factors to the culture to improve differentiation proportion of motor neurons. The development and maturation process of motor neurons in vitro culture is similar to that in embryo, involving participation of Pax6, Nk×6.1, Olig2 and HB9. Moreover, cells with HB9 as separation mark almost differentiate into motor neurons in vitro. In addition, other types of protein marks have been used for identification of motor neuronal induced differentiation, such as neuron mark MAP-2, β-tubulin-Ⅲ, cholinergic cell mark ChAT, VAChT, Schwann cell mitogen REG2, and voltage-dependent calcium ion channel 11.2 subunit. The identification of induced differentiation of motor neurons also involves detection of function of differentiated motor neurons by two methods. One method is to detect the function of in vitro cultured motor neurons, and the other is to detect the function of transplanted motor neurons in vivo. Although induced differentiation of stem cells into motor neurons becomes mature, many issues remain in clinical application, such as cell sources of induced differentiation of motor neuron, efficiency of induced differentiation, purification of differentiated motor neurons, and function of motor neurons.