Telomerase-Immortalized Lines of Human Neural Stem and Progenitor Cells

This invention describes methods to obtain an immortalized, nontransformed population of neural cells from a population of progenitor cells. The method entails two steps, which may executed in any order: immortalizing by transfection with telomerase, and enriching the progenitors for the desired cell type using FACS. The established cell lines are nononcogenic and functionally competent.

The enrichment may be conducted using the FACS method with any of the promoters claimed above, and new promoters are claimed as well: a tyrosine hydroxylase promoter, a choline acetyltransferase promoter, a glutamic acid decarboxylase promoter, an MNR2 gene promoter, an Hb9 gene promoter, a sox2 homeodomain gene promoter, a bHLH protein promoter, a neurogenin-2 promoter, a NKx2.2 promoter, and an olig2 promoter. Surface proteins A2B5 and A133 may also be used.