Scattered primary and conditionally immortalized neuroepithelial cells transplanted into the embryonic rat brain differentiate into neurons and glial cells

✍ Scribed by Lorenzo Magrassi; Stefano Pezzotta; Giorgio Butti; Luciano Conti; Stefano Govoni; Elena Cattaneo

• Book ID: 102661390
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 646 KB
• Volume: 18
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0893-6609
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1520-6769(199605)18:3<175::aid-nrc154>3.0.co;2-2

✦ Synopsis

Insights into the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying CNS development have been obtained by placing immature CNS cells ectopically into the brain. Our previous short-term survival experiments demonstrated that when immature cells were transplanted into the developing Nervous System the majority of the cells aggregated into clusters but a small proportion dispersed into the host brain. In this report we followed the behaviour of those donor cells found scattered into the host parenchyma at heterotopic sites. To this end, either freshly dissociated primary cells or conditionally immortalized cells were labelled with BrdU and DiI, and then 3x104 cells were injected into the CNS of E15-16 embryos via in utero surgery. Transplanted animals were perfused three weeks after the surgery. Immunohistochemical procedures and analyses of the morphology of the DiI labelled cells indicate that vansplanted cells found scattered into the host brain integrate into the embryonic environment and differentiate into neurons and glial cells.