Potential Therapeutic Approaches for Stroke Using Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Stroke is a principal cause of mortality in most countries and up to date there is no cure or potential therapeutic treatment available for this debilitating condition. Human induced pluripotent stem (hiPS) cells are an important source for autologous cells used in regenerative medicine in order to treat brain damage after a stroke has occurred. Recent studies have suggested that transplanted neural cells derived from hiPS cells have the potential to survive, differentiate and improve motor behavior in stroke animal models. In this review, we discuss the conditions needed to reprogram hiPS cells for clinical trials, the strategies used to differentiate hiPS cells toward neural stem cells (NSC) lineage along with their functionality and morphological characteristics studied in vitro. We further address the features founded in vivo after graft transplantation of these neural cells into stroke animal models.