Transplantation of Defined Populations of Differentiated Human Neural Stem Cell Progeny

Many neurological injuries are likely too extensive for the limited repair capacity of endogenous neural stem cells (NSCs). An alternative is to isolate NSCs from a donor, and expand them in vitro as transplantation material. Numerous groups have already transplanted neural stem and precursor cells. A caveat to this approach is the undefined phenotypic distribution of the donor cells, which has three principle drawbacks: (1) Stem-like cells retain the capacity to proliferate in vivo. (2) There is little control over the cells’ terminal differentiation, e.g., a graft intended to replace neurons might choose a predominantly glial fate. (3) There is limited ability of researchers to alter the combination of cell types in pursuit of a precise treatment. We demonstrate a procedure for differentiating human neural precursor cells (hNPCs) in vitro, followed by isolation of the neuronal progeny. We transplanted undifferentiated hNPCs or a defined concentration of hNPC-derived neurons into mice, then compared these two groups with regard to their survival, proliferation and phenotypic fate. We present evidence suggesting that in vitro-differentiated-and-purified neurons survive as well in vivo as their undifferentiated progenitors, and undergo less proliferation and less astrocytic differentiation. We also describe techniques for optimizing low-temperature cell preservation and portability.