The embryonic stem cells (ESC) play significant role in cell replacement therapies for degenerative diseases and as models of development and differentiation. Currently, a major effort is focused on defining appropriate in-vitro conditions that would allow ESC to differentiate into specific cell types required for clinical therapies. 

Characterization of rESC-derived NE cells and neurospheres in the HGF + G5 group.

Non-human primates are valuable animal models because of their extensive use in biomedical research, their close phylogenetic relationship to humans, and hence their clinical relevance. Potential applications of human ESC in regenerative medicine must be tested in non-human primate species prior to application in humans.

A simple monoculture system, combined with a chemically defined medium containing hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and G5 supplement, was used to induce rhesus monkey embryonic stem cells (rESC) directly into neuroepithelial (NE) cells.

Under these conditions, the generation of NE cells did not require the formation of embryoid bodies or co-culture with other cell types. The NE cells could further develop to generate neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. These results demonstrate a simple approach to obtain enriched and expandable populations of neural progenitors.

Importantly, unlike other systems, the neural progenitors obtained using this approach may possess the potential to differentiate into various regional neural cells.

Finally, the results suggest that the time-dependent shift in the differentiation potential of the rESC-derived neural progenitors in vitro reflects the developmental events that occur during neurogenesis in vivo.

Thus, this system can be used to study the mechanisms of cell fate specification during non-human primate neurogenesis. Also, this system set up a model for studying the mechanisms of human degenerative diseases and the application of human ESC in regenerative medicine.

This work has been published in Reproductive Bio Medicine Online, (Chen X, Li T, Li X, Xie Y, Guo X, Ji S, Niu Y, Yu Y, Ding C, Yao R, Yang S, Ji W, Zhou Q , Neural progenitors derived from monkey embryonic stem cells in a simple monoculture system. Reprod Biomed Online. 2009 Sep;19(3):426-433.) This work was supported by research grants from Major State Basic Development Program (No. 2006CB701501, 2006CB701505, and 2007CB947702).