Protocols for Adult Stem Cells

Although embryonic stem cells currently enjoy the public limelight and show great pr- ise for cell based medical therapies, it is the adult stem cells which are responsible for the body’s natural ability to fght disease, heal and recover, or fail and succumb to various maladies. The study of mammalian adult stem cells has surged recently, most likely from a maturation of stem cell studies in the classical developmental model organisms and in hematopoeisis. All the tissues of the body examined so far are generated and regenerated from stem cells, it has been an important frst step to adapt or devise new methods to identify and obtain these cells in quantity and purity for further study. Culture techniques have been optimized for managing the growth and differentiation of stem cells in vitro; as some stem cells are pluripotent, often the method is to guide the fate of such cells among the possible differentiation fates. Much of this work, and that in the classical model org- isms, has helped defne the aspects of the stem cell environment or niche that are crucial for both growth and differentiation, and these studies have moved in vivo at increasingly higher resolution. Importantly, the in vivo niche is a current target for bioengineering the matrix and signaling factors. Herein, we present methods for studying six types of mammalian stem cells, m- mary, neural, mesenchymal, endothelial, dendritic, and muscle.

Protocols for Adult Stem Cells Editors Irina Conboy, David Schaffer, Mary Barcellos-Hoff, and Song Li Table of Contents: In Situ Analysis of Cell Populations: Long-Term Label-Retaining Cells Rodrigo Fernandez-Gonzalez, Irineu Illa-Bochaca, Dawne N. Shelton, Bryan E. Welm , Carlos Ortiz-deSolorzano and Mary Helen Barcellos-Hoff Limiting-Dilution Transplantation Assays in Mammary Stem Cell Studies Rodrigo Fernandez-Gonzalez, Irineu Illa-Bochaca1, Dawne N. Shelton, Bryan E. Welm , Carlos Ortiz-deSolorzano and Mary Helen Barcellos-Hoff Use of Stem Cell Markers in Dissociated Mammary Populations Rodrigo Fernandez-Gonzalez,Irineu Illa-Bochaca, Dawne N. Shelton, Bryan E. Welm, Carlos Ortiz-deSolorzano and Mary Helen Barcellos-Hoff Isolation of Adult Hippocampal Neural Progenitors Joseph Peltier, Brandi K. Ormerod, David V. Schaffer In vitro Culture and Analysis of Adult Hippocampal Neural Progenitors Joseph Peltier, Smita Agrawal, Matthew J. Robertson, David V. Schaffer In vivo Analysis of Engrafted Adult Hippocampal Neural Progenitors Matthew J. Robertson, Joseph Peltier, David V. Schaffer Viral Packaging and Transduction of Adult Hippocampal Neural Progenitors Joseph Peltier, David V. Schaffer Culture of Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells on Engineered Matrix Jennifer S. Park, Craig Hashi and Song Li Preparation and analysis of endothelial progenitor cells associated with angiogenesis Steve Khachi, Yiqian Zhu, and Guo-Yuan Yang Preparation of adult muscle fiber associated stem/precursor cells Michael J. Conboy and Irina M. Conboy Immuno-analysis and FACS sorting of adult muscle fiber associated stem/precursor cells Michael J. Conboy, Massimiliano Cerletti, Amy J. Wagers and Irina M. Conboy Altered expression of NF-kappa B in ex vivo differentiated dendritic cells from the aged subjects: Implications in immunotherapy Anshu Agrawal Preparation of collagen-coated gels that maximize in vitro myogenesis of stem cells by matching the lateral elasticity of in vivo muscle Tathagata Chaudhuri, Florian Rehfeldt, H. Lee Sweeney and Dennis E. Discher