Stem cells

This study aimed to investigate the ability of mesenchymal stem cells derived from bone marrow of human and rat to transdifferentiate into functional neural like cells. A study was made on two different models (human and rat) using two different techniques (direct plating and density gradient method) respectively. Immunophenotypic analysis demonstrated that human and rat BM-MSCs at passage three uniformly positive for CD44 sub-population. However MSCs were always found to be negative for heamatopoietic specific markers CD34. To explore the possibility of BM-MSCs in vitro transdifferentiation the expanded MSCs from third passage were allowed to reach 80% confluence and induced to differentiate into neuron like cells by an enhanced three-step protocol. The identity of the NLCs were illustrated by the analysis of morphology using immunocytochemistry.