Mouse neural stem cells cultured in vitro and expressing an exogenous gene

Neural stem cells are the multipotential, self-renewing cells in central ne rve system, and play an essential role in the development and differentiati on of nerve system. Neural stem cells can be used to treat the nerve system diseases, especially, the transplantation of neural stem cells to rescue t he degenerated neural cells has become a very promising therapeutic way. We successfully cultured neural stem cells isolated from the brains of embryo nic mice in vitro and determined their distribution in the E17 mice brains. The neural stem cells were transfected with adenoviral vector carrying GFP (green fluorescence protein) gene and then highly expressed the exogenous gene. It paves the way for gene therapy of degenerative nerve system diseas es.