Combination of bFGF, heparin and laminin induce the generation of dopaminergic neurons from rat neural stem cells both in vitro and in vivo.

Neural stem cells (NSCs) are self-renewing and pluripotent, which can differentiate into neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. Due to these properties, NSCs are supposed to be an ideal candidate to clinical purpose while research on cell replacement therapy to treat neural diseases has been widely investigated recently. In this article, we demonstrated a new and efficient method to induce the generation of proliferative dopaminergic neurons from rat NSCs in the presence of bFGF, heparin and laminin both in vitro and in vivo. These cells were testified to survive in the grafted 6-Hydroxy-Dopamine (6-OHDA) lesioned rat for at least 1 month. More importantly, migration to close host tissue was observed on day 30 post-transplantation. In this regard, we anticipated that this technology may advance stem cell-based therapy to replace lost neurons in neural injury or neurodegenerative disorders.