IDENTIFICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF MOLECULES INVOLVED IN NEURAL DIFFERENTIATION OF STEM CELLS: IMPROVING THE USE OF CELL-BASED THERAPY IN NEURODEGENERATIVE DISORDERS

Repair of damaged tissues and organs is critical for the survival of any individual. In this perspective, cell transplantation might help us to overcome the intrinsic incapability of different tissues of the adult organism, such as the nervous system, to replace injured elements. Although cell transplantation represents a promising therapeutic approach, the success of such strategy is limited by the access to preparation and development of highly specialized cells as well as the technical and surgical steps associated with the transplantation procedures. Embryonic Stem (ES) cells are special kind of cells that have a unique capacity to renew itself indefinitely and to give rise to any specialized cell types of the adult organism through a process called differentiation. Thus, researchers are looking with growing interest for ways to efficiently isolate and differentiate ES cells in order to use them to replace cells and tissues that are damaged or diseased in a variety of disorders, including neurological diseases. The knowledge about the mechanisms and the molecules involved in the differentiation to neurons of ES cells is still largely incomplete. Our research project is aimed at the identification and characterization of molecules able to promote neural differentiation in ES cells. The identification of such molecules could be important for both understanding the mechanisms underlying neural induction in stem cells and improving the control of experimental procedures for the generation of neurons starting from undifferentiated ES cells. Thus, these findings could have important implications for the development of differentiation protocols to be used in stem cell-based transplantation therapies for treating neurodegenerative disorders such as the Parkinson Disease.