Isolation of c-Kit+ human amniotic fluid stem cells from second trimester.

Amniotic fluid-derived stem (AFS) cells have been described as an appealing source of stem cells because of their (1) fetal, non-embryonic origin, (2) easy access during pregnancy overcoming the ethical issues related both to the use of human embryonic cells and to the postnatal tissue biopsy with donor site morbidity, and (3) their undemanding ability to be expanded. We and others have demonstrated the broad differentiation potential and here we describe the established protocol we developed to obtain c-Kit+ human AFS cells, starting from second trimester amniocentesis samples.