Antibodies for Pluripotent Stem Cells and Neural Lineage Cells

Light up neural differentiation pathways

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Stem cells have tremendous potential for use in developmental biology research, disease modeling, drug screening, and cell therapy for neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that have the capacity both to self-renew through mitosis and to differentiate into specialized cell types such as neuronal, liver, or muscle cells. Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) that are commonly characterized by their expression of the transcription factors Nanog, OCT4, and SOX2, and the cell-surface proteins SSEA3, SSEA4, TRA-1-60, and TRA-1-81 (Figure 1). To verify the functional pluripotency of PSCs, they must undergo further testing to confirm their ability to differentiate into the three embryonic germ layers: ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm.

Mammalian neurogenesis begins with the induction of neuroectoderm, which forms the neural plate and then folds to give rise to the neural tube. These structures are composed of a layer of neuroepithelial progenitors (NEPs) that can be rapidly turned into primitive neural stem cells (NSCs). NSCs are self-renewing, multipotent progenitors present in the developing and adult mammalian central nervous system. During neural differentiation, NSCs undergo progressive lineage restrictions leading to glial progenitors (CD44⁺ A2B5⁺), which can become astrocytes (GFAP⁺) and oligodendrocytes (Galc⁺ O4⁺). The other branch of lineage restriction is the neuronal path leading to various types of neurons such as dopaminergic (DA) neurons (Figure 2). Table 1 provides a list of common markers and the corresponding antibodies used to characterize PSCs and NSCs (Figure 1) as well as downstream glial and neuronal cells (Figure 2).

Find your stem cell antibody

The characterization of stem cells is a critical step in stem cell research. No matter which detection platform you use—flow cytometry, immunocytochemistry, western blot, ELISA, or another—our collection of over 51,000 Invitrogen™ antibodies provides you with tools compatible with your experimental design.

Table 1. Selected antibodies for the characterization of stem cells and neural lineage cells. For a complete list, go to thermofisher.com/antibodies.