Author : Ahmed Medhat Mostafa Fahmy
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (133 download)
Book Synopsis Neural Crest Stem Cells Are the Elite Cell Type in Cellular Reprogramming by : Ahmed Medhat Mostafa Fahmy
Download or read book Neural Crest Stem Cells Are the Elite Cell Type in Cellular Reprogramming written by Ahmed Medhat Mostafa Fahmy and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nobel winning discovery by Yamanaka et al in reprogramming somatic cells to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) was instrumental in the emergence of the new field of Regenerative Medicine. However, the techniques to accomplish this reprogramming have plagued by problems relating to the efficiency of the process and the poor understanding of their cellular mechanisms. Several studies were able to improve the efficiency of reprogramming by manipulating chromatin remodeling factors. Despite this there is still no clear and non-ambiguous study which shows if all differentiated cells have the potential of being reprogrammed or whether there exists an elite subpopulation of cells that are selectively being reprogrammed. We hypothesize that a primary source of iPSCs and directly reprogrammed cells are neural crest stem cells (NCSCs) found in the heterogenous cell cultures of the starting populations. It is well established that multipotent NCSCs migrate to many parts of the developing embryo where they can produce a vast array of cell types, some of these NCSCs remain as undifferentiated stem cells throughout adulthood. We traced the lineage of neural crest cells in mice embryos using a Cre based lineage tracing system. We found that Neural Crest (NC) derived cells were present in the primary cell culture and they increased in proportion with passage number. This showed that there exists neural crest derived cells in cultures identical to those used in reprogramming studies. We reprogrammed skin samples of mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) and found that the iPSCs produced were almost exclusively from a NC origin. Following these findings, we sought to test whether the same is true for direct reprogramming experiments that attempt to convert skin fibroblasts to neurons directly. We hypothesized that these "induced" neurons (iN) are descendants of NC progenitors and stem cells that already have the potential to differentiate into them, and indeed, all of the iNs were derived from our NC marked cells. These studies can help better understand the cellular mechanism of reprogramming and will help devise more efficient techniques of reprogramming that could contribute to new therapies for treating neurodegenerative diseases.