Human neural crest stem cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells.

The neural crest cells give rise to neurons and glia in the peripheral nervous system, which is an important component of the nervous system. Here we developed a scalable process of inducing neural crest stem cells (NCSCs) from hESCs/iPSCs by a combination of growth factors in medium conditioned on stromal cells, and showed that NCSCs could be purified by p75 using FACS. In vitro-expanded NCSCs were able to differentiate into neurons and glia (Schwann cells) of the peripheral nervous system (PNS) as well as mesenchymal derivatives.