Fraunhofer Research Institution for Marine Biotechnology, Lübeck, Germany.
PLoS One. 2011;6(9):e24944. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0024944. Epub 2011 Sep 14.
Targeted differentiation of stem cells is mainly achieved by the sequential administration of defined growth factors and cytokines, although these approaches are quite artificial, cost-intensive and time-consuming. We now present a simple xenogeneic rat brain co-culture system which supports neuronal differentiation of adult human stem cells under more in vivo-like conditions.
This system was applied to well-characterized stem cell populations isolated from human skin, parotid gland and pancreas. In addition to general multi-lineage differentiation potential, these cells tend to differentiate spontaneously into neuronal cell types in vitro and are thus ideal candidates for the introduced co-culture system. Consequently, after two days of co-culture up to 12% of the cells showed neuronal morphology and expressed corresponding markers on the mRNA and protein level. Additionally, growth factors with the ability to induce neuronal differentiation in stem cells could be found in the media supernatants of the co-cultures.
The co-culture system described here is suitable for testing neuronal differentiation capability of numerous types of stem cells. Especially in the case of human cells, it may be of clinical relevance for future cell-based therapeutic applications.
目前，干细胞的定向分化主要通过顺序给予特定的生长因子和细胞因子来实现，尽管这些方法非常人为、成本高且耗时。我们现在提出了一种简单的异种大鼠脑共培养系统，该系统在更类似于体内的条件下支持成人人类干细胞的神经元分化。
该系统应用于从人皮肤、腮腺和胰腺分离的特征明确的干细胞群体。除了一般的多谱系分化潜能外，这些细胞在体外自发倾向于分化为神经元细胞类型，因此是引入的共培养系统的理想候选物。因此，在共培养两天后，多达 12%的细胞表现出神经元形态，并在 mRNA 和蛋白质水平上表达相应的标志物。此外，在共培养物的培养基上清液中可以找到具有诱导干细胞神经元分化能力的生长因子。
本文描述的共培养系统适合测试多种类型干细胞的神经元分化能力。特别是对于人类细胞，它可能对未来基于细胞的治疗应用具有临床相关性。
