IN VITRO PROPERTIES OF NEURAL CREST-DERIVED MULTIPOTENT STEM CELLS FROM A BULGE REGION OF WHISKER FOLLICLE

A culture method for multipotent neural crest-derived stem cell isolated from the bulge region of the hair follicle of whisker pad of adult mice has been described and their biological properties have been studied. It was shown that the cells possess a fibroblast-like morphology, they are nestin-positive and cytokeratin-negative, and also express the following surface markers: CD44, CD73, CD90 and Sca-1. This cell type shows the functional properties of stem cells in culture: clonogenicity, self-renewal, sphere-forming capacity and the ability to the directed multilineage differentiation. Due to these properties, neural crest-derived multipotent stem cells are promising for application in the regenerative medicine