Application of human Schwann cells derived from skin neural precursor cells to the engineering of the peripheral nervous system

Abstract

The isolation of autologous neural precursors from human skin‐derived precursor cells would be a very efficient source of Schwann cells for the treatment of various disorders of the nervous system and also for the development of tissue engineered models to better understand the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that these neural precursors were able to differentiate into mature Schwann cells and to use them in the engineering of models of the nervous system. We isolated neural precursors from human breast skin and expanded them in vitro. Once cultured in differentiation medium, they have the typical Schwann cells's bipolar morphology. We have shown by indirect immunofluorescent staining and Western Blot that these cells expressed the Schwann cell markers p75NTR, S100B and CNPase. We then reconstructed tissue‐engineered connective tissues enriched with differentiated human Schwann cells. We conclude that the generation of autologous Schwann cells from an accessible adult human source opens many potential therapeutic applications and has a great interest for experimental studies on the normal human Schwann cell physiology.