Label-free enrichment of fate-biased human neural stem and progenitor cells

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Human neural stem and progenitor cells (hNSPCs) have therapeutic potential to treat neural diseases and injuries since they provide neuroprotection and differentiate into astrocytes, neurons, and oligodendrocytes. However, cultures of hNSPCs are heterogeneous, containing cells linked to distinct differentiated cell fates. HNSPCs that differentiate into astrocytes are of interest for specific neurological diseases, creating a need for approaches that can detect and isolate these cells. Astrocyte-biased hNSPCs differ from other cell types in electrophysiological properties, namely membrane capacitance, and we hypothesized that this could be used to enrich these cells using dielectrophoresis (DEP). We implemented a two-step DEP sorting scheme, consisting of analysis to define the optimal sorting frequency followed by separation of cells at that frequency, to test whether astrocyte-biased cells could be separated from the other cell types present in hNSPC cultures. We developed a novel device that increased sorting reproducibility and provided both enriched and depleted cell populations in a single sort. Astrocyte-biased cells were successfully enriched from hNSPC cultures by DEP sorting, making this the first study to use electrophysiological properties for label-free enrichment of human astrocyte-biased cells. Enriched astrocyte-biased human cells enable future experiments to det

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

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