Neural Stem Cells

Beschreibung

Over the last decade, advances in neural stem cell research have raised the hope that one day cellular therapy will not only replace missing neurons, but also replenish absent chemical signals, metabolites, enzymes, neurotransmitters, or other missing or defective components from the diseased or injured brain. In Neural Stem Cells: Methods and Protocols, internationally recognized experts from academic, clinical, and pharmaceutical laboratories describe in great detail the most frequently used cellular, molecular, and electrophysiological methods to isolate, characterize, and utilize neural stem cells. These readily reproducible techniques introduce the various sources of stem/progenitor cells, provide a wide range of conditions for their culture, and make it possible to define their properties in culture. Additional techniques are designed to help researchers identify endogenous stem cells as well as exogenous stem cells after transplantation in the brain. The protocols range from the simplest methods of isolation and characterization of neural cell properties to such very sophisticated methods as characterizing gene expression, telomerase assays, and cell cycle kinetics. Each is written by an investigator who has used the method extensively, and includes step-by-step instructions, tips on avoiding pitfalls, and invaluable notes that make all the difference to successful experimental outcomes.
Comprehensive and easy-to-follow, Neural Stem Cells: Methods and Protocols provides a powerful synthesis of today's key in vitro and in vivo techniques to identify and characterize neural stem cells for research and for developing experimental therapeutics.
Over the last decade, neural stem cell research has provided penetrating insights into the plasticity and regenerative potential of the brain. Stem cells have been isolated from embryonic as well as adult central nervous system (CNS). Many non-CNS mammalian tissues also contain stem cells with a more limited repertoire: the replacement of tissue-specific cells throughout the li- time of the organism. Progress has been made in understanding fundamental stem cell properties that depend on the interplay of extrinsic signaling factors with intrinsic genetic programs within critical time frames. With this growing knowledge, scientists have been able to change a neural stem cell’s fate. - der certain conditions, neural stem cells have been induced to differentiate into cells outside the expected neural lineage and conversely, stem cells from nonneural tissue have been shown to transdifferentiate into cells with distinct neural phenotypes. At the moment, there is an accelerated effort to identify a readily ava- able, socially acceptable stem cell that can be induced to proliferate in an und- ferentiated state and that can be manipulated at will to generate diverse cells types. We are on the threshold of a great new therapeutic era of cellular therapy that has as great, if not greater, potential as the current pharmacologic era, g- rified by antibiotics, anesthetics, pain killers, immunosuppressants, and psyc- tropics.

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Tanja Zigova

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"...the book will be of value to stem cell researchers, as the protocols are presented in sufficient detail to make the replication of results likely between laboratories. Neural Stem Cells is a competently collected and presented set of methods." -Cell Therapy News
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