Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 6, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7626
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- NIH-NINDS [NS045926, NS064578, NS074189, NS085689]
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [P30 HD03352]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have opened new opportunities for understanding human development, modelling disease processes and developing new therapeutics. However, these applications are hindered by the low efficiency and heterogeneity of cell types, such as motorneurons (MNs), differentiated from hPSCs as well as our inability to maintain the potency of lineage-committed progenitors. Here by using a combination of small molecules that regulate multiple signalling pathways, we develop a method to guide human embryonic stem cells to a near-pure population (>95%) of motor neuron progenitors (MNPs) in 12 days, and an enriched population (>90%) of functionally mature MNs in an additional 16 days. More importantly, the MNPs can be expanded for at least five passages so that a single MNP can be amplified to 1 x 10(4). This method is reproducible in human-induced pluripotent stem cells and is applied to model MN-degenerative diseases and in proof-of-principle drug-screening assays.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available