Motoneuron differentiation of immortalized human spinal cord cell lines

Human motoneuron cell lines will be valuable tools for spinal cord research and drug discovery. To create such cell lines, we immortalized NCAM(+)/neurofilament(+) precursors from human embryonic spinal cord with a tetracycline repressible v-myc oncogene. Clonal NCAM(+)/neurofilament(+) cell lines differentiated exclusively into neurons within 1 week. These neurons displayed extensive processes, exhibited immunoreactivity for mature neuron-specific markers such as tau and synaptophysin, and fired action potentials upon current injection. Moreover, a clonal precursor cell line gave rise to multiple types of spinal cord neurons, including ChAT(+)/Lhx3(+)/Lhx4(+) motoneurons and GABA(+) interneurons. These neuronal restricted precursor cell lines will expedite the elucidation of molecular mechanisms that regulate the differentiation, maturation and survival of specific subsets of spinal cord neurons, and the identification and validation of novel drug targets for motoneuron diseases and spinal cord injury.