Stem cells are undifferentiated biological cells that can differentiate into all lineages under defined control condition. Stem cell neuronal differentiation can faithfully recapitulate stages of neural development and generate neuronal progenitors, mature neurons, and glial cells. Stem cell technology will largely allow for the replacement of animal studies and reduce costs, and will provide a new paradigm for in toxic genomics, bioinformatics, systems biology, and epigenetics studies. Here, we describe a nonadherent neuronal differentiation methodology developed in our laboratory, which can rapidly derive neurons and astrocytes from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) and use of this platform for nanoparticle neurotoxicity study.
Keywords: Human embryonic stem cells; Induced pluripotent stem cells neuronal differentiation; Neuronal progenitors; Neurons and astrocyte; Neurotoxicity; Silver nanoparticles.