Neural crest is a temporary embryonic structure, which create many different cell types in vertebrates including neurons and glia. Some of these cells maintain multipotency in an adult organism and locate in the bulge area of hair follicle. Multiple studies showed positive effects of transplantation of these cells into peripheral nerve and spinal cord. Here we show how neural crest stem cell from hair follicle (HF-NCSCs) interact with brain tissue.
We studied the effect of medium conditioned with embryonic nervous tissue on mouse HF-NCSCs using immunocytochemistry, migration assay, scattering assay and proliferation assay. In addition, we cocultured the HF-NCSCs with living brain slices in vitro. Finally, we performed transplantation of HF-NCSCs into the mouse brain. Data was processed with one way ANOVA analysis and Tukey criteria.
HF-NCSCs do not showed significant differences in markers expression when cultured in conditioned medium, but on the living brain slices, the part of the HF-NCSCs started to express doublecortin. Proliferation level of HF-NCSCs declined at similar rates in both control and brain groups, but the brain maintained high migration level of HF-NCSCs.
Transplantation showed that pre-differentiated HF-NCSCs had better viability than untreated HF-NSCSs. A lot of viable cells were found at 28 day after transplantation. We did not observe gliosis at the border of the transplant area. HF-NCSCs are freely proliferated, migrated and interacted with brain tissue.
Our results reveal HF-NCSCs as perspective source of cells for autologous reconstruction of brain tissue. Although cultured HF-NCSCs are able to interact with nervous tissue they should be preliminary differentiated to improve effectiveness of transplantation.

Hair follicle associated neural crest stem cells interact with mouse brain tissue