PERSISTENCE OF MULTIPOTENTIAL PROGENITORS IN THE JUVENILE RAT SUBVENTRICULAR ZONE

The juvenile subventricular zone (SVZ) normally produces oligodendrocy tes. To determine whether juvenile SVZ cells are lineage-restricted or whether they remain multipotential, we labeled SVZ cells and characte rized their progeny after 1 week in vitro using cell morphology and an tigen expression. Heterogeneous clones comprised of retrovirally label ed neurons and astrocytes or astrocytes and oligodendrocytes were obse rved, as well. as homogeneous clones of neurons, astrocytes or oligode ndrocytes. Large type-1-astrocyte clones were most common, and mixed o ligodendrocyte/type-1-astrocyte clusters represented 15% of the total clusters. Twenty five percent of the total clusters contained at least 1 immature neuron, Of 128 clones, 6-10% contained neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. From these results we conclude that the juvenil e SVZ is a mixture of lineage-restricted, bipotential and multipotenti al neural progenitors.