Neural crest-like stem cells for tissue regeneration

Abstract

Neural crest stem cells (NCSCs) are a transient population of cells that arise during early vertebrate development and harbor stem cell properties, such as self‐renewal and multipotency. These cells form at the interface of non‐neuronal ectoderm and neural tube and undergo extensive migration whereupon they contribute to a diverse array of cell and tissue derivatives, ranging from craniofacial tissues to cells of the peripheral nervous system. Neural crest‐like stem cells (NCLSCs) can be derived from pluripotent stem cells, placental tissues, adult tissues, and somatic cell reprogramming. NCLSCs have a differentiation capability similar to NCSCs, and possess great potential for regenerative medicine applications. In this review, we present recent developments on the various approaches to derive NCLSCs and the therapeutic application of these cells for tissue regeneration.

Dental Pulp Stem Cell Heterogeneity: Finding Superior Quality “Needles” in a Dental Pulpal “Haystack” for Regenerative Medicine-Based Applications

“…During development, neural crest-derived cells delaminate from the periphery of the neural tube, migrate to the oral region, and undergo epithelial-mesenchymal transition, differentiating into neural crest stem cells and subsequently into several other cell types and tissues within the craniofacial region (Figure 1). As the self-renewal and multipotency of premigratory and postmigratory neural crest cells are thought to be maintained by neural crest-derived MSCs within developing tissues [30,31], neural crest cells confer the advantageous regenerative properties of MSCs within the craniofacial region, including hDPSCs [11,12,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33].…”

“…Certain hDPSC subpopulations would undoubtedly be responsible for replenishing odontoblasts and pulpal fibroblasts lost due to disease and trauma during tertiary dentinogenesis [1,32,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44]119]. However, considering the neural crest origins of ectomesenchymal-derived hDPSCs, together with the highly vascularised and innervated nature of dental pulp tissues [1,[26][27][28][29][30][31][32], it is reasonable to assume that other hDPSC subpopulations are responsible for vascular and neural cell replacement and the identification of neural and perivascular cell markers within the dental pulp [6, 9, 11, 12, 37-44, 49-53, 56, 57, 63-65]. That said, as the identification of stem cell markers is an essential prerequisite to enable the selective screening, isolation, and purification of hDPSC subpopulations for particular therapeutic applications, it remains plausible that additional minor hDPSC subpopulations exist within dental pulp tissues which are yet to be isolated and explored, due to a lack of understanding regarding their intrinsic stem cell marker properties, niche locations, and roles within the dentine-pulp complex.…”

“…Several studies indicate that intrinsic positional information can dictate the neural crest stem cell phenotype within tissues and that environmental signals can regulate neural crest cell developmental fate and differentiation. As postmigratory neural crest cells only comprise a small proportion of the larger DPSC population overall and their multipotency is believed to persist within tissues [27][28][29][30][31][32][33], it is plausible that such differential developmental origins within the DPSC population contributes to their heterogenic nature. However, pericyte-derived subpopulations within the perivascular niche have been ascribed principal roles in mediating tissue repair responses within the dentine-pulp [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44].…”

Craniofacial cartilage organoids from human embryonic stem cells via a neural crest cell intermediate

“…While current protocols can successfully generate functional cartilage, they suffer from a few major drawbacks. First, cartilage produced using embryoid body or mesoderm formation as a precursor has the potential to retain stem-like characteristics in the differentiated tissue, which could contribute to tumor formation (Fu et al, 2016;Maguire et al, 2015;Oldershaw et al, 2010;Soto et al, 2021). Second, the terminal differentiation stage of mesenchymal tissue is bone, and these systems can suffer from cartilage hypertrophy and ossification (Dexheimer et al, 2016;Van de Walle et al, 2018).…”

Neural crest cells and their potential therapeutic applications

“…В соответствии с исходным расположением и влиянием сигнальных молекул, клетки нервно-го гребня (КНГ) мигрируют в различные участки тела эмбриона, где они могут дифференцироваться в разные типы клеток, включая эктомезенхимальные ткани (хрящевая и костная), чувствительные нейроны и кишечные ганглии периферической нервной системы [1].…”