Cell Surface Antigen Display for Neuronal Differentiation-Specific Tracking.

Cell therapeutic agents for treating degenerative brain diseases using neural stem cells are actively being developed. However, few systems have been developed to monitor in real time whether the transplanted neural stem cells are actually differentiated into neurons. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a technology capable of specifically monitoring neuronal differentiation . In this study, we established a system that expresses cell membrane-targeting red fluorescent protein under control of the promoter in order to specifically monitor differentiation from neural stem cells into neurons. In order to overcome the weak expression level of the tissue-specific promoter system, the partial 5' UTR sequence of was added for efficient expression of the cell surface-specific antigen. This system was able to track functional neuronal differentiation of neural stem cells transplanted , which will help improve stem cell therapies.