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Experimental Advances Towards Neural Regeneration from Induced Stem Cells to Direct In Vivo Reprogramming

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Abstract

Neuronal loss is a common substrate of many neurological diseases that still lack effective treatments and highly burden lives of affected individuals. The discovery of self-renewing stem cells within the central nervous system (CNS) has opened the doors to the possibility of using the plasticity of CNS as a potential strategy for the development of regenerative therapies after injuries. The role of neural progenitor cells appears to be crucial, but insufficient in reparative processes after damage. In addition, the mechanisms that regulate these events are still largely unknown. Stem cell-based therapeutic approaches have primarily focused on the use of either induced pluripotent stem cells or induced neural stem cells as sources for cell transplantation. More recently, in vivo direct reprogramming of endogenous CNS cells into multipotent neural stem/progenitor cells has been proposed as an alternative strategy that could overcome the limits connected with both the invasiveness of exogenous cell transplantation and the technical issues of in vitro reprogramming (i.e., the time requested and the limited available amount of directly induced neuronal cells). In this review, we aim to highlight the recent studies on in vivo direct reprogramming, focusing on astrocytes conversion to neurons or to neural stem/precursors cells, in the perspective of future therapeutic purposes for neurological disorders.

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Acknowledgments

The financial support of the Cariplo research grant to SC is gratefully acknowledged. The support of the “Associazione Amici del Centro Dino Ferrari” is gratefully acknowledged.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests. All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dino Ferrari Centre, Neuroscience Section, Department of Pathophysiology and Transplantation (DEPT), Neurology Unit, IRCCS Foundation Ca’ Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, University of Milan, Via Francesco Sforza 35, 20122, Milan, Italy

    Sara Dametti, Irene Faravelli, Margherita Ruggieri, Agnese Ramirez, Monica Nizzardo & Stefania Corti

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  1. Sara Dametti
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  2. Irene Faravelli
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  3. Margherita Ruggieri
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  6. Stefania Corti
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Correspondence to Stefania Corti.

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Dametti, S., Faravelli, I., Ruggieri, M. et al. Experimental Advances Towards Neural Regeneration from Induced Stem Cells to Direct In Vivo Reprogramming. Mol Neurobiol 53, 2124–2131 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12035-015-9181-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12035-015-9181-7

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