Biotechnology Bulletin ›› 2015, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (7): 26-32.doi: 10.13560/j.cnki.biotech.bull.1985.2015.07.037

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Direct Reprogramming of Somatic Cells into Neurons and Neural Stem Cells

Zhou Zhenning   

  1. (Institute for Neuroscience,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Shanghai 200031)
  • Received:2015-01-23 Online:2015-07-16 Published:2015-07-16

Abstract: The direct reprogramming of somatic cells is a process that one differentiated cell type can be directly converted into another kind of differentiated cell type,which bypasses the phase of induced pluripotent stem cells(iPSCs). Compared with the iPSC technology,the direct reprogramming of somatic cells has higher efficiency of reprogramming,and avoids introducing oncogenes.Modern medicine has no effective treatment for nerve cell damage which due to neurodegenerative diseases,neurological genetic diseases and traumatism. Somatic cells directly reprogramming into neural cells may provide another way to treat these diseases. Recently,several studies have shown that the ectopic expression of specific neural and pluripotent stem cell transcription factors can directly convert differentiated cells into induced neurons(iNs)and induced neural stem cells(iNSCs). Here,we will review the most recent progress in the somatic cells directly reprogramming into iNs and iNSCs and also discuss the application of iNs and iNSCs in future.

Key words: induced neurons, induced neural stem cells, fibroblasts, direct reprogramming, induced transdifferentiation