Stem cells

In the adult organism, stem cells are mainly present in regenerating tissues and give rise to differentiated, specialized cell types.

Neural progenitor cells

One of the most fascinating and highly specialized types of cells are those of the nervous system: neurons and glial cells. In contrast to regenerating tissues, it was a long-held dogma in neuroscience that in the mature brain no new neurons can be generated. However, stem cells are now also known in the adult brain. 

We isolate neural stem cells from the subventricular zone and study dynamic gene expression changes during their in vitro differentiation.

Gene Expression Changes in the Course of Neural Progenitor Cell Differentiation

Ulf Gurok, Christine Steinhoff, Bettina Lipkowitz, H.-Hilger Ropers, Constance Scharff, Ulrike A. Nuber
J. Neurosci. 2004 24: 5982-6002

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Bone marrow stromal cells

Recent findings indicate that neuron-like cells can be generated from adult stem cells that are derived from bone marrow. The unexpected plasticity of bone marrow stromal cells has gained increased attention, yet major gaps of knowledge concerning the exact identity of these cells and their potential remain. We have established and characterized mouse BMSC cultures and analyzed three independent samples by cDNA microarrays. As a probabilistic model for the expression of genes in these cells, the fitting of a mixture of normal densities was applied to the dataset. (Steinhoff et al., LNCS, 2003). To gain clues about the positional context and biology of the isolated cells within the bone marrow stroma, we searched our data for genes which encode proteins of the extracellular matrix, cell adhesion proteins, cytoskeletal proteins and cytokines / cytokine receptors. This analysis revealed a close association of BMSC with vascular cells and indicated that BMSC are highly similar to pericytes.

Gene expression profile of mouse bone marrow stromal cells determined by cDNA micoarray analysis

Georg Wieczorek, Christine Steinhoff, Ralph Schulz, Marina Scheller, Martin Vingron, H.-Hilger Ropers, Ulrike Nuber
Cell Tissue Res. 2003 Feb;311(2):227-37

Dermis-derived progenitor cells

We study sphere-forming cells derived from mouse dermis for their identity and differentiation potential. Cells of this kind were first described by Freda Miller and colleagues (Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, CA).