Review : Neural Stem-Like Cells: Developmental Lessons with Therapeutic Potential

Abstract

It is possible, by a variety of means, to isolate, propagate, and characterize engraftable clones of cells from the mammalian CNS that fulfill the operational definition of a "stem cell": self-maintaining, self-renewing, and extremely multipotent in vitro and in vivo. Even as debates flourish over how neural stem cells might best be defined, identified, represented, and manipulated, clonal cells with "stem-like" features have begun to provide valuable models for studying commitment, differentiation, and plasticity in the CNS. Furthermore, by learning in this way the basic biology of neural stem cells, and by then exploiting those inherent properties for therapeutic ends, novel and multifaceted strategies seem poised to emerge for redressing a variety of heretofore untreatable CNS dysfunctions. Stem-like cells have begun to show promise for neural cell re placement and molecular support therapy in various animal models of degenerative, developmental, and acquired CNS insult. NEUROSCIENTIST 4:408-425, 1998