Human neural stem cells (NSCs) hold great promise for the research and treatment of neurological diseases. Creative Bioarray is committed to developing safe and effective strategies to directly reprogram somatic cells into expandable neural progenitors. We provide scientific assistance to help our clients obtain patient-specific neural cells for drug screening and medical applications.
Background
The emergence of techniques to induce pluripotent stem cells from somatic cells by transcription factors is a significant breakthrough in the field of cellular reprogramming. Furthermore, the transdifferentiation from one differentiated cell type to another by lineage reprogramming has extended this field. This kind of technique is particularly useful for cells in which the target tissue is inaccessible, such as the brain. In recent years, it has become feasible to reprogram somatic cells, such as connective tissue cells, into neural precursor cells or mature neural cells. However, these artificially generated neural cells often fail to expand and are therefore hard to use for therapeutic purposes.
Direct reprogramming of somatic cells into expandable neural progenitors can produce sufficient cells for downstream research and clinical applications, while this approach reduces the risk of tumor formation. To date, the most common source of human and mouse-induced NSCs is skin fibroblasts. However, the requirement for skin biopsy and the complexity of expanding fibroblasts in vitro have hindered the broad applicability of this technique. Previous attempts by Yu et al. to transform CD34+ cells of neonatal cord blood origin into NSCs revealed that induced generation of NSCs from blood-derived cells appears to be a more practical approach.
Fig.1 A schematic overview of the conversion of somatic cells into neural progenitors. (Their, 2019)
Our Services
Currently, Creative Bioarray has established several methods to provide clients with specialized and efficient reprogramming services for blood cells. The services we provide include but are not limited to:
- Transgenic delivery using non-integrative episomal vectors to reprogram adult human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PB-MNCs) into NSCs.
- Generation of expandable induced NSCs from cord blood CD34-positive cells by ectopic expression of OCT4, a key transcription factor for somatic cell reprogramming to iPS cells, in a feeder-free system.
- We offer multiple cell characterization services to ensure that induced NSCs can exhibit NSC morphology, gene expression, self-renewal ability and are capable of generating various functional neural subtypes and glial cells in vitro.
Applications
- Disease modeling
- Development of regenerative medicine for neurological disease
- Advances in neurological disease research
Advantages
- Easily accessible approach for generating human iNSCs
- Safety in vivo
- Detailed after-sales services
In order to provide professional and efficient blood cell reprogramming services to clients worldwide, Creative Bioarray has established multiple strategies to reprogram blood cells into patient-specific sources of non-tumorigenic, highly scalable neural tissue. If you are interested in our services, please contact us directly and we will provide you with the best solution.
References
- Their, M.C.; et al. Identification of embryonic neural plate border stem cells and their generation by direct reprogramming from adult human blood cells. Cell stem cell. 2019, 24(1): 166-182.
- Liao, W.; et al. Direct conversion of cord blood CD34+ cells into neural stem cells by OCT4. Stem cells translational medicine. 2015, 4(7): 755-763.