Neurogenic peripheral blood‐derived adult stem cells

Self‐renewing neural stem cells are routinely isolated from embryonic or fetal sources. We describe here the development of several clonal lines of neurogenic self‐renewing multipotent progenitor cells that have been isolated from the blood of adult green fluorescent protein transgenic swine. The cells are designated “peripheral blood derived multipotent adult progenitor cells” (PBD‐MAPCs). These cells grow as spheroids (reminiscent of neurospheres) and readily proliferate under conditions chosen to promote self‐renewal without differentiation. We have isolated 5 independent lines of these cells from 2 different animals. When plated under neurogenic differentiation conditions PBD‐MAPCs rapidly differentiate into cells that express several neural markers including microtubule‐associated protein 2ab, myelin basic protein, NeuN, glial fibrillary acidic protein, and tyrosine hydroxylase. The expression of these markers was confirmed by both confocal immunofluorescence and immunoblots. These cells exhibit the diverse morphologies that are consistent with neurons and glia. Furthermore, when grown on a thin film of MatrigelTM the cells exhibit robust migration and process/projection formations and appear to engage in dynamic cell‐cell interrogations and interactions. We conclude that PBD‐MAPCs represent adult neurogenic stem cells that can be used as cell culture models of neural development and as reagents for stem cell therapy for many neurological disorders. Supported by NIH PO1HL52490.