Dopamine Produced by Stimulated Neural Stem Cells

Investigators have developed a technique to stimulate laboratory cultures of human neural stem cells to produce dopamine, the chemical lacking in Parkinson's disease. The technique was described at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Orlando, FL (USA).
Researchers from Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University (Philadelphia, PA, USA) grew human neural stem cells in tissue culture. After adding a cocktail of protein growth factors and nutrients, they found that approximately 25% of the stem cells were manufacturing tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), an enzyme needed to make dopamine. The induction of the stem cells was permanent, as they continued to make TH after the growth factor cocktail was removed.
"We have two examples of human stem cells that do this,” explained research leader Dr. Lorraine Iacovitti, professor of neurology at Thomas Jefferson University. "The obvious extension of these results is to take those predifferentiated human dopamine neurons and transplant them into Parkinson's disease model systems.”
Employing new methodology to label living dopamine neurons with a fluorescent marker, the investigators hope to be able to purify or enrich the number of dopamine producing neurons and eventually transplant them into animal models of Parkinson's disease.



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