title: Medial fetal ventral mesencephalon: a preferred source for dopamine neuron grafts.
abstract: Currently, fetal tissue transplantation into patients with Parkinson's disease utilizes the entire ventral mesencephalon (VM) as donor tissue. However, the resulting mixture of cell types contains a relatively low proportion of therapeutically relevant dopamine (DA) neurons. We show that differential dissection of a medial region of embryonic day 14 rat VM yields a significantly higher proportion of DA neurons (8-10%) than is found in lateral VM (2%) or whole VM (4-5%). Medial VM also contained a larger number of the specific subpopulation of DA neurons (aldehyde dehydrogenase-positive; AHD) that project to dorsolateral motor region of the striatum. Selective dissection of fetal medial VM selectively enriches DA neurons in cell preparations useful for transplantation in Parkinson's disease.
authors.affiliation: Neuroregeneration Laboratory, Harvard Medical School, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA 02178, USA.
authors.forename: L C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Costantini
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Isacson
mesh_terms: D000444:Aldehyde Dehydrogenase / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D016380:Brain Tissue Transplantation; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000502:physiology*; D004298:Dopamine / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D016332:Fetal Tissue Transplantation; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008636:Mesencephalon / Q000637:transplantation*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D014446:Tyrosine 3-Monooxygenase / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D014446:Tyrosine 3-Monooxygenase; D000444:Aldehyde Dehydrogenase; D004298:Dopamine