ENStem-A Neural Expansion Medium

As the focus of stem cell research undergoes a transition from animal to human models, researchers are in critical need of validated products to support the isolation, maintenance, differentiation, and characterization of human stem cells. While many reagents designed for rodent systems can be applied to human stem cell studies, they are not truly optimized for robust human stem cell culture or analysis. This is why human stem cell researchers have always trusted EMD Millipore, the first provider of commercially available human embryonic stem cells and human neural stem cell lines, to accelerate their research. All of our human stem cell systems are extensively tested in defined media culture, and differentiated progeny are comprehensively characterized with highly validated antibodies and detection reagents.

Dual SMAD inhibition is a well-established method to derive neural progenitor cells from both human ES and iPS cells. This protocol uses two SMAD inhibitors, Noggin and SB431542, to drive the rapid differentiation of ES/iPS cells into a highly enriched population of NPCs. Noggin acts as a BMP inhibitor and SB431542 inhibits the Lefty/Activin/TGFβ pathways by blocking the phosphorylation of ALK4, ALK5, and ALK7 receptors. In an effort to make a more defined and optimized neuronal differentiation protocol, Li and colleagues modified the original protocol to establish a completely small molecule-based differentiation method, which relies on three small molecules to inhibit GSK-3β (CHIR99021), TGFβ (SB431542), and Notch (compound E) signaling pathways, along with human LIF3. This new small molecule-based neural differentiation protocol increased neural differentiation kinetics and allowed the derivation of truly multipotent neural stem cells that respond to regional patterning cues specifying forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain neural and glial subtypes.