%0 Journal Article
%T Perivascular mesenchymal stem cells in the adult human brain: a future target for neuroregeneration?
%A Ilknur £¿zen
%A Jordi Boix
%A Gesine Paul
%J Clinical and Translational Medicine
%D 2012
%I Springer
%R 10.1186/2001-1326-1-30
%X Adult stem cells (ASCs) are found in almost all organs of the postnatal human body. They reside in the perivascular niche, a specific microenvironment that allows ASCs to retain their multi-lineage potential and self-renewal capacity [1,2]. The perivascular niche consists of ASCs, neighbouring cells and extracellular matrix [1,3,4].Adult stem cells are a source for organ-specific cell replacement either during the normal cell turnover or under pathological conditions [5,6]. These stem cells often remain dormant until they are activated by the body¡¯s need to maintain tissues, or in response to disease or tissue injury. Some ASC types, such as hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) or enteric stem cells, have a high proliferation rate, whereas in other organs, ASCs only divide under certain conditions, stimulated by injury for example.In contrast to embryonic stem cells, the differentiation potential of ASCs is regarded as more restricted, usually to the cells of the tissue in which they reside. This suggests that the differentiation of an ASC into a specialized cell might be dependent on the surrounding tissue. However, this classical paradigm of tissue-specific differentiation capacity has been challenged by observations of a different degree of plasticity in some adult tissues that has resulted in differentiation beyond tissue boundaries [5].One ASC type that has specifically attracted attention during the past years are mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) [7-12]. Friedenstein and co-workers [13] were the first to describe MSCs, originally termed mesenchymal stromal cells, as a rare population of plastic-adherent cells that could be isolated from the bone marrow but was different from HSCs [13]. Mesenchymal stem cells are isolated by adherence to plastic, possess a high proliferative potential and are characterized by the expression of a panel of surface markers [14] and their capacity to differentiate along mesodermal lineages such as osteoblasts, chondrocytes and adipocytes [
%K Pericytes
%K Mesenchymal stem cells
%K Perivascular niche
%K Neuroregeneration
%U http://www.clintransmed.com/content/1/1/30