EFFICIENT AND UNIVERSAL METHOD FOR INDUCING THE DIFFERENTIATION OF NERVE CELLS FROM PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS

摘要

The present invention relates to a method for inducing the differentiation of nerve cells from stem cells. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for inducing the differentiation of nerve cells from stem cells by suppressing the bone morphogenetic protein signaling pathway and the Activin/Nodal signaling pathway of stem cells. Unrelated to the floating culture and attachment culture methods and others used in the prior art for stem cell differentiation, the method of the present invention is advantageous in that it can efficiently differentiate all stem cells into nerve cells. Also, nerve cells that have been induced to differentiate according to the present invention may be differentiated with high efficiency into specific cells (for example, dopamine nerve cells) or oligodendrocytes, etc., so that the method may be applied in the future to intractable nervous system disorders (such as Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injuries) and provide material forming the basis for the development of novel drugs.