title: Converted neural cells: induced to a cure?
abstract: Many neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease (PD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and others often occur as a result of progressive loss of structure or function of neurons. Recently, many groups were able to generate neural cells, either differentiated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) or converted from somatic cells. Advances in converted neural cells have opened a new era to ease applications for modeling diseases and screening drugs. In addition, the converted neural cells also hold the promise for cell replacement therapy (Kikuchi et al., 2011; Krencik et al., 2011; Kriks et al., 2011; Nori et al., 2011; Rhee et al., 2011; Schwartz et al., 2012). Here we will mainly discuss most recent progress on using converted functional neural cells to treat neurological diseases and highlight potential clinical challenges and future perspectives.
authors.affiliation: National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.
authors.forename: Weiqi
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Shunlei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Duan
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Xiuling
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qu
authors.forename: Weizhou
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Guang-Hui
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000690:Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis / Q000628:therapy; D000818:Animals; D054338:Cell Transdifferentiation; D064987:Cell- and Tissue-Based Therapy; D057026:Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology* / Q000637:transplantation; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000628:therapy; D020521:Stroke / Q000628:therapy