Culture of pluripotent neural epithelial progenitor cells from E9 rat embryo

The mammalian central nervous system is developmentally derived from neuroepithelial cells in the neural plate. These neuroepithelial cells grow and differentiate in response to signals from their surrounding environment. Many of those signals have been well characterized and others remain to be discovered. In cell culture, a conditioned medium, a feeder cell layer, or a tissue extract has been used as supplement in addition to those factors well characterized for maintaining the multipotent status of neural progenitor cells. To date, there have been many types of neural progenitor cells established in culture from various stages of development and from different regions of the nervous system of various species. This chapter will provide a brief introduction to those cultures and a detailed method for culturing rat neural epithelial cells at embryonic stage E9 and characterizing them in vitro and in vivo.