Stem Cells in Amniotic Fluid - What are the Next Steps to Do?

It is the hope of patients and investigators that in future the characterisation and isolation of human stem cells will allow the establishment of new therapeutic concepts for a wide variety of diseases. Recently, we found a new source for stem cells. Human amniotic fluid contains cells, which express Oct-4, a marker for pluripotent stem cells. In addition, we described amniotic fluid cells expressing markers for neuronal stem cells. The latter harbour the potential to differentiate into neurogenic cells. This opened a new field in stem cell research. In this review I want to summarise the current knowledge about amniotic fluid cells focusing on the open questions, which need to be investigated in future.