title: Somatic stem cell research for neural repair: current evidence and emerging perspectives.
abstract: Recent evidence supports the existence of adult mammalian stem cell subpopulations, particularly within the bone marrow, that may be able to "transdifferentiate" across tissue lineage boundaries, thus offering an accessible source for therapeutic applications even for neural tissue repair. However, the difficulties in reproducing some experimental data, the rarity of the transdifferentiation events and observations that cell fusion may be an alternative explanation argue against the idea of stem cell plasticity. Investigations going beyond descriptive experiments and more mechanicistic approaches may provide a more solid foundation to adult stem cell therapeutic potential.
authors.affiliation: Centro Dino Ferrari, Dipartimento di Scienze Neurologiche, Università degli Studi di Milano, I.R.C.C.S. Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milano 20122, Italy. stefania.corti@unimi.it
authors.forename: Stefania
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Corti
authors.forename: Federica
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Locatelli
authors.forename: Dimitra
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Papadimitriou
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Strazzer
authors.forename: G P
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Comi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002459:Cell Fusion; D019070:Cell Lineage; D006801:Humans; D045164:Mesenchymal Stem Cell Transplantation; D039902:Multipotent Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000637:transplantation; D019636:Neurodegenerative Diseases / Q000601:surgery*; D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology*