Quantitative gene profiling in human adult neural stem cells

Recently we showed the successful isolation and expansion of neural stem cells from adult human brain (hbNSC for human brain-derived neural stem cells). Furthermore, we reported the conversion of adult human mesodermal stromal cells (hMSCs) into cell with all major properties of neural stem cells (hmNSC for human mesodermal-derived neural stem cells). Both types of NSCs can be easily expanded neither losing the markers typical for neural stem cells nor their differentiation potential. Here we report on quantitative gene expression analysis comparing haNSCs, hmNSCs, hMSCs and human adult cortical tissue using quantitative one-step-RT-PCR and the LightCycler®-technology. We analyzed gene expression patterns of pro-neural genes, early neuroectodermal genes, glial and neuronal genes as well as mesodermal genes. We found significant expression of most pro-neural and early neuroectodermal genes in both types of NSCs, but only low expression of glial and neuronal genes. These were up-regulated during terminal differentiation of these cells into glial and neuronal cells. Our data suggest that hMSCs can be converted into neural stem-like cells with similar gene expression profile compared to that of brain-derived NSCs.