Critical points for optimizing long-term culture and neural differentiation capacity of rodent and human neural stem cells to facilitate translation into clinical settings

Abstract

Despite several decades of research on the nature and functional properties of neural stem cells, which brought great advances in regenerative medicine, there is still a plethora of ambiguous protocols and interpretations linked to their applications. Here, we present a whole spectrum of protocol elements that should be standardized in order to obtain viable cell cultures and facilitate their translation into clinical settings. Additionally, this review also presents outstanding limitations and possible problems to be encountered when dealing with protocol optimization. Most importantly, we also outline the critical points that should be considered before starting any experiments utilizing neural stem cells or interpreting their results.

Keywords: Neural stem cells; cryopreservation; culture conditions; interspecies variability; medium composition; neural differentiation.