Premium
Neuron‐to‐astrocyte transition: Phenotypic fluidity and the formation of hybrid asterons in differentiating neurospheres
Author(s) -
Laywell Eric D.,
Kearns Sean M.,
Zheng Tong,
Chen K. Amy,
Deng Jie,
Chen HuanXin,
Roper Steven N.,
Steindler Dennis A.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of comparative neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 209
eISSN - 1096-9861
pISSN - 0021-9967
DOI - 10.1002/cne.20722
Subject(s) - neurosphere , biology , astrocyte , neuroscience , neuron , phenotype , subependymal zone , cell type , lineage (genetic) , neurogenesis , neural stem cell , stem cell , cellular differentiation , microbiology and biotechnology , cell , genetics , gene , adult stem cell , central nervous system
To the extent that their fate choice and differentiation processes can be understood and manipulated, neural stem cells represent a promising therapeutic tool for a variety of neuropathologies. We have previously shown that mature astrocytes possess neural stem cell attributes, and can give rise to neurons through the formation of multipotent neurosphere clones. Here we show that relatively mature neurons generated from neurospheres derived from postnatal subependymal zone or cerebellar cortex undergo a phenotypic transformation into astrocytes that coincides with the appearance of a nonfused, hybrid cell type that shares the morphology, antigenicity, and physiology of both neurons and astrocytes. We refer to this astrocyte/neuron hybrid as an “asteron,” and hypothesize that it represents an intermediate step in the trans‐ or dedifferentiation of neurons into astrocytes. The present finding suggests that seemingly terminally differentiated neural cells may in fact represent points along a bidirectionally fluid continuum of differentiation, with intermediate points represented by “hybrid” cells coexpressing phenotypic markers of more than one lineage. J. Comp. Neurol. 493:321–333, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.