Premium
Temporal establishment of neural cell identity in vivo and in vitro
Author(s) -
Yuen Shun Ming,
Kwok Hang Fai
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.835
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1932-7005
pISSN - 1932-6254
DOI - 10.1002/term.2158
Subject(s) - cell fate determination , neural cell , biology , neural stem cell , cell type , microbiology and biotechnology , induced pluripotent stem cell , somatic cell , cell , progenitor cell , in vivo , neuroscience , neural development , stem cell , embryonic stem cell , genetics , transcription factor , gene
Abstract Understanding cell fate specification is particularly useful because it enables biologists to generate specific neural cell types for treating currently untreatable neurological diseases. Traditionally, lineage‐specific progenitors are generated in vitro from pluripotent cells, after which they may be channeled into more mature cell types in a stage‐specific manner, which is similar to the way cells behave during development. However, the emergence of induced pluripotent stem cells means that specific cell types can be generated directly from fibroblasts or other somatic cell types, thus bypassing all of the necessary steps that happen in vivo . Based on this information, the present review first explores the regulatory circuitry that drives cell fate specification over time in vivo . In particular, it describes how the appearance of specific neuronal and glial cell types is governed by an intrinsic biological clock, followed by a discussion of how this can be achieved through the temporal expression of intracellular regulators in relation to cell‐specific Dnase I hypersensitivity sites, promoters and enhancers. Cell fate acquisition in vitro was then examined in an attempt to evaluate whether the temporal regulation neural cell fate in vivo is still relevant to the generation of reprogrammed neural stem cells and neurons. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.