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Published December 11, 1992 | public
Journal Article

Isolation of a stem cell for neurons and glia from the mammalian neural crest

Abstract

We have isolated mammalian neural crest cells using a monoclonal antibody to the low affinity NGF receptor, and established conditions for the serial propagation of these cells in clonal culture to assess their developmental potential. This analysis indicates that, first, single mammalian neural crest cells are multipotent, able to generate at least neurons and Schwann cells like their avian counterparts. Second, multipotent neural crest cells generate multipotent progeny, indicating that they are capable of self-renewal and therefore are stem cells. Third, multipotent neural crest cells also generate some clonal progeny that form only neurons or glia, suggesting the production of committed neuroblasts and glioblasts. Manipulation of the substrate alters the fate of the multipotent cells. These findings have implications for models of neural crest development in vivo, and establish a system for studying the generation of cellular diversity by a multipotent stem cell in vitro.

Additional Information

© 1992 by Cell Press. Received August 24, 1992; Revised September 30, 1992. We thank M. Dubois-Dalcq, J. Brockes, L. Parysek, G. Lemke, J. Dodd, S. Hockfield, G. Weskamp, and E. M. Johnson, Jr. for gifts of antibodies. We are grateful to S. Fraser, P. Patterson, and E. Rothenberg for their constructive suggestions throughout the course of this work, to S. Fraser, M. Rao, S. Birren, B. Wold, and P. Patterson and T. Jessell for their critical comments on various versions of this manuscript, and to R. Axel for a helpful discussion. This work was supported by funds from the National Institutes of Health, the Pew Foundation, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. D. J. A. is an Assistant Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 USC Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023