Derivation of functional dopamine neurons from embryonic stem cells.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the selective degeneration of dopaminergic (DA) neurons in the substantia nigra of the midbrain. Pharmacological treatment of PD has been a prevailing strategy. However, it has some limitations because its effectiveness gradually decreases and side effects develop. As an alternative, cell transplantation therapy has been tried. Although transplantation of fetal ventral mesencephalic cells looks promising for the treatment of PD in some cases, ethical and technical problems in obtaining large numbers of human fetal brain tissues also lead to difficulty in its clinical application. Our recent studies showed that a high yield of DA neurons could be derived from embryonic stem (ES) cells and they efficiently induced behavioral recovery in a PD animal model. Here we summarize methods for generation of functional DA neurons from ES cells for application to PD models.
Kim
Dae-Sung
DS
Department of Physiology, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, Korea.
Kim
Ji Young
JY
Kang
Minkyung
M
Cho
Myung Soo
MS
Kim
Dong-Wook
DW
D002454:Cell Differentiation; D017690:Cell Transplantation; D018920:Coculture Techniques; D004298:Dopamine / Q000378:metabolism*; D053595:Embryonic Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D006801:Humans; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000637:transplantation
D004298:Dopamine