title: Staging and preparation of human fetal striatal tissue for neural transplantation in Huntington's disease.
abstract: Transplantation of human fetal central nervous system tissue has been shown to be of benefit in Parkinson's disease, and is currently being explored as a therapeutic option in Huntington's disease. The success of a neural transplant is dependent on a number of factors, including the requirement that donor cells are harvested within a given developmental window and that the cell preparation protocols take account of the biological parameters identified in animal models. Although many of the criteria necessary for a successful neural transplant have been defined in animal models, ultimately they must be validated in human studies, and some issues can only ever be addressed in human studies. Furthermore, because neural transplantation of human fetal tissue is limited to small numbers of patients in any one surgical center, largely due to practical constraints, it is crucial that tissue preparation protocols are clearly defined and reproducible, so that (i) multicenter trials are possible and are based on consistent tissue preparation parameters, and (ii) results between centers can be meaningfully analyzed. Here we describe the preparation of human fetal striatum for neural transplantation in Huntington's disease, and report on the validation of a method for estimating the developmental stage of the fetus based on direct morphometric measurements of the embryonic tissue.
authors.affiliation: School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, PO Box 911, Museum Av, Cardiff CF10 3US, Wales, UK. RosserAE@cf.ac.uk
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Rosser
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Barker
authors.forename: R J E
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Armstrong
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Elneil
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jain
authors.forename: C B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Hurelbrink
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Prentice
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Carne
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Thornton
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hutchinson
authors.forename: S B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Dunnett
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D016380:Brain Tissue Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D016332:Fetal Tissue Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D005333:Fetus / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D005865:Gestational Age; D006801:Humans; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000601:surgery; D017072:Neostriatum / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000196:embryology / Q000637:transplantation*; D011247:Pregnancy; D020858:Tissue and Organ Harvesting / Q000379:methods*