抄録
The spinal cord, which is part of the central nervous system, has been considered a typical example of an organ in which regeneration is difficult. However, since the report of recovery of function in a spinal cord injury (SCI) model as a result of cell transplantation of rat-fetus-derived neural stem/progenitor cells (NS/PCs), stem cell transplantation therapy has attracted great hope of restoring and replenishing lost neurons and glia. In recent years induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that possess embryonic stem (ES)-cell-like pluripotency and proliferative capacity have been produced by introducing several different genes into somatic cells. Rapid progress is currently being made in research on iPS cells with the aim of enabling cell transplantation therapy, and reports of the development of methods of inducing human iPS cells to differentiate into a variety of somatic cells and cases of treatment of murine models with mouse iPS cells have appeared one after another. However, when viewed from a safety standpoint, problems that arise because ES cells and iPS cells are both pluripotent stem cells and many problems unique to iPS cells, which have been artificially reprogrammed, still remain unresolved, and there is a desire for further progress in research. In this paper we outline these issues and report the latest findings in regard to application to the treatment of spinal cord injury.
