Generation of hematopoietic cells from multipotent neural stem cells

Patent Number: 7,204,979

The concept of cellular transdifferentiation has come under much attack in the last few years. For example, some authors believe that transdifferentiation can be explained by cellular fusion in in vivo systems, and by non-physiological, contrived, in vitro systems.

This patent covers the generation of hematopoietic stem cells from multipotent neural stem cells by the administration of the multipotent neural stem cells into a "hematopoietic-inducing environment".

At face value one would ask why on earth would people collect neural stem cells from the brain of healthy people for differentiation into hematopoietic stem cells, when hematopoietic stem cells are readily available from sources such as bone marrow, cord blood, or mobilized peripheral blood.

However, the procedure of extracting neural progenitors from the brain, without apparent brain damage, has been established by companies such as Neurogeneration.

The interesting part about this patent is not just the possibility of clinical development but the concept of neural cells differentiating into hematopoietic stem cells. The inventors provided various experiments supporting this possibility, including Example 6 in which SCID mice were reconsituted with T cells by transfer of B6 neural progenitors.

View this patent on the USPTO website.