Review point on neural stem cells and neurogenic areas of the central nervous system

Abstract

The potential applications of neural stem cells (NSC) in the therapy of degenerative and trau-matic diseases of the central nervous system (CNS) have aroused great scientific interest. NSCs can be recovered from specific areas of the CNS from fetuses, embryos and from adult brain as well, and under appropriate culture conditions, may be induced to differentiate into the three major neural cell types, neurons, as-trocytes and oligodendrocytes. The main neu-rogenic areas of mammals are the subventricu-lar zone (SVZ) and the dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus, yet other areas of neurogenic potential have been identified, including frontal and parietal cortices, hippocampus and lateral wall of the lateral ventricle. Neural stem cells and differentiated neural cells are usually iden-tified by expression of specific markers, pro-teins that are expressed by different cell types and/or at different stages of differentiation. The main cell markers are nestin and Sox-2 for un-differentiated NSCs, beta-III tubulin (B-III tubulin) for neurons, Galactocerebroside (GalC) for oli-godendrocytes and Glial fibrillary acid protein (GFAP) for astrocytes. In general, the main neu-rogenic areas, the neurogenic potential of NSC and the morphological and biological charac-teristics of differentiated neural cells are strik-ingly similar among species, yet some differen-ces have been reported. This article presents a brief review of NSCs, neurogenic areas and te-chniques used for their identification and charac-terization in humans and experimental animals.