Song Hong-jun, Stevens Charles F, Gage Fred H
Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the Salk Institute, 10010 N. Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, California 92037, USA.
Nat Neurosci. 2002 May;5(5):438-45. doi: 10.1038/nn844.
Neural stem cells are present both in the developing nervous system and in the adult nervous system of all mammals, including humans. Little is known, however, about the extent to which stem cells in adults can give rise to new neurons. We used immunocytochemistry, electron microscopy, fluorescence microscopy (FM imaging) and electrophysiology to demonstrate that progeny of adult rat neural stem cells, when co-cultured with primary neurons and astrocytes from neonatal hippocampus, develop into electrically active neurons and integrate into neuronal networks with functional synaptic transmission. We also found that functional neurogenesis from adult stem cells is possible in co-culture with astrocytes from neonatal and adult hippocampus. These studies show that neural stem cells derived from adult tissues, like those derived from embryonic tissues, retain the potential to differentiate into functional neurons with essential properties of mature CNS neurons.
神经干细胞存在于包括人类在内的所有哺乳动物的发育中的神经系统和成年神经系统中。然而，关于成体干细胞能够产生新神经元的程度，人们所知甚少。我们使用免疫细胞化学、电子显微镜、荧光显微镜（FM成像）和电生理学方法来证明，成年大鼠神经干细胞的后代在与新生海马体的原代神经元和星形胶质细胞共培养时，会发育成具有电活性的神经元，并通过功能性突触传递整合到神经网络中。我们还发现，成年干细胞与新生和成年海马体的星形胶质细胞共培养时，功能性神经发生是可能的。这些研究表明，源自成年组织的神经干细胞，与源自胚胎组织的神经干细胞一样，保留了分化为具有成熟中枢神经系统神经元基本特性的功能性神经元的潜力。
