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Berninger, B.

Making neurons from mature glia: A far-fetched dream?

Neuropharmacol. 58, 894-202 (2010)
DOI PMC
Open Access Green as soon as Postprint is submitted to ZB.
The fact that cells with glial characteristics such as forebrain radial glia during development and astroglial stem cells in the adult neurogenic zones serve as neuronal precursors provokes the question why glia in most other areas of the adult central nervous system are apparently incapable of generating new neurons. Besides being of pivotal biological interest answers to this question may also open new avenues for cell-based therapies of neurodegenerative diseases that involve a permanent loss of neurons which are not replaced naturally. For if one could indeed instruct glia to generate neurons, such a strategy would carry the enormous advantage of making use of a large pool of endogenous, and hence autologous cells, thereby circumventing many of the problems associated with therapeutic strategies based on transplantation. Accordingly, the recent years have seen increasing effort in assessing the plasticity of astroglia and other types of resident non-neuronal cells as a potential source for new neurons in the injured brain or eye. For instance, following injury astroglia in the cerebral cortex and Muller glia in the retina can de-differentiate and acquire stem or precursor cell like properties. Moreover, it has been shown that astroglia can be reprogrammed in vitro by forced expression of neurogenic transcription factors to transgress their lineage restriction and stably acquire a neuronal identity. In this review I will discuss the status quo of these early attempts, the limitations currently encountered and the future challenges before the full potential of this approach can be weighed.
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Publication type Article: Journal article
Document type Scientific Article
Corresponding Author
Keywords Stem cells; Neurogenesis; Proneural genes; Brain repair; Reactive gliosis; Muller glia
ISSN (print) / ISBN 0028-3908
e-ISSN 1873-7064
Journal Neuropharmacology
Quellenangaben Volume: 58, Issue: 6, Pages: 894-202 Article Number: , Supplement: ,
Publisher Elsevier
Publishing Place Orlando, Fla. [u.a.]
Non-patent literature Publications
Reviewing status Peer reviewed
Institute(s) Institute of Stem Cell Research (ISF)