Specific characteristic of radial glia in the human fetal telencephalon

Abstract

Phenotypic characteristics of cells in the developing human telencephalic wall were analyzed using electron microscopy and immunocytochemistry with various glial and neuronal cell markers. The results suggest that multiple defined cell types emerge in the neocortical proliferative zones and are differentially regulated during embryonic development. At 5-6 weeks gestation, three major cell types are observed. Most proliferating ventricular zone (VZ) cells are labeled with radial glial (RG) markers such as vimentin, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), and glutamate astrocyte-specific transporter (GLAST) antibodies. A subpopulation of these RG cells also express the neuronal markers beta III-tubulin, MAP-2, and phosphorylated neurofilament SMI-31, in addition to the stem cell marker nestin, indicating their multipotential capacity. In addition, the presence of VZ cells that immunoreact only with neuronal markers indicates the emergence of restricted neuronal progenitors. The number of multipotential progenitors in the VZ gradually decreases, whereas the number of more restricted progenitors increases systematically during the 3-month course of human corticogenesis. These results suggest that multipotential progenitors coexist with restricted neuronal progenitors and RG cells during initial corticogenesis in the human telencephalon. Since the multipotential VZ cells disappear during the major wave of neocortical neurogenesis, the RG and restricted neuronal progenitors appear to serve as the main sources of cortical neurons. Thus, the diversification of cells in human VZ and overlying subventricular zone (SVZ) begins earlier and is more pronounced than in rodents.

Dopamine Receptors in Human Embryonic Stem Cell Neurodifferentiation

“…1B 1 ). At this gestational age (2nd trimester) there is massive proliferation of neurons in the developing human cerebral cortex [30]. The highest TH mRNA expression was detected in the final differentiation stage of our protocol (Fig.…”

“…The insertion of sodium channels in developing human neurons is manifested in electrophysiological recordings by an increase in peak amplitude of the fast inactivating sodium current paralleled by neuronal ability to generate APs [28]. In the current project, whole cell recordings were performed on differentiated cells at Stage 5 (days [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38], after at least 2 weeks of chronic DA exposure. Each cell was typically recorded in 2 electrical configurations; current clamp for assessing the voltage waveforms of APs (Fig.…”

Down-regulation of the axonal polysialic acid–neural cell adhesion molecule expression coincides with the onset of myelination in the human fetal forebrain

“…Radial glia cells, labeled with GFAP, extend long radial fibers from VZ/SVZ to the cortical plate (Zecevic, 2004). Neither of those fibers, nor the cell bodies of radial glia cells in the VZ are co-labeled with PSA-NCAM (Fig, 2E, F).…”

Molecular and Morphological Heterogeneity of Neural Precursors in the Mouse Neocortical Proliferative Zones

“…Numerous studies have suggested that the ventricular zone (VZ) stem cells generate committed neuronal, glial, and bipotential progenitors, each restricted to the production of one or more types of postmitotic cells (Maric et al, 2000;McCarthy et al, 2001;Piper et al, 2001;Cai et al, 2002b;Liu et al, 2002;Shen et al, 2002;Maric et al, 2003;. Indeed, multipotent radial glial cells (RGCs) and distinct committed neuronal and glial progenitors have been identified in the human and monkey VZ (Levitt et al, 1981(Levitt et al, , 1983Ostenfeld and Svendsen, 2004;Zecevic, 2004). In contrast, recent reports suggest that the rodent neocortical VZ is composed primarily of multipotential RGCs, which generate all of the dorsally derived neocortical cells (Noctor et al, 2002;Fishell and Kriegstein, 2003;Weissman et al, 2003) including cortical astrocytes (Pixley and de Vellis, 1984;Misson et al, 1988;Takahashi et al, 1990;Hunter and Hatten, 1995;Kamei et al, 1998;deAzevedo et al, 2003).…”