Functional Roles of Glycoprotein Glycans in Neural Stem Cells

Abstract

Neural stem cells (NSCs) possess high proliferative potential and capacity for self-renewal with retention of multipotency to differentiate into brain-forming cells. The glycoprotein glycans expressed on NSCs are associated with the maintenance of neural cell stemness and differentiation via several signaling pathways. Here we outline current knowledge of the possible functional mechanisms of glycoprotein glycans to determine cell fates, which are associated with their expression patterns and structural characteristic features.