Stem Cell Advancement for Study of Parkinson's Disease

    Researchers have found a way to use human embryonic stem cells to model how nerve cells develop and diseases progress without the difficulties of past attempts. They say this could be very valuable, for example, in studying human dopaminergic cells in Parkinson's disease.

    The researchers, from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute of Aging, and BresaGen, Inc., explain human embryonic stem cells are valuable for potential therapeutic reasons and for studying the development and progression of cells. Recently, there have been cases where the embryonic stem cells were differentiated into dopaminergic neurons, or dopamine-producing neurons.

    However, there are difficulties in these creations and their maintenance. Researchers say simplifying the production of dopaminergic neurons from stem cells would be valuable as a model for research outside the body.

    Researchers found a variant line of human embryonic stem cells could be used for the differentiation and without some of the problems found in using normal stem cell lines.

    Author Xianmin Zeng, Ph.D., from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, says the variant line is stable and is currently available worldwide to researchers from the American Type Culture Collection at a cost-effective rate. In addition, the variant line's growth characteristics and recovery from freezing are better than its parent stem cell line. Nonetheless, its properties are very similar to the parent line.

    They suggest this line is an ideal substitute for routine experiments on human embryonic stem cell properties and differentiation.