Neural cell markers and their applications to neurology

Cell-type-specific antigenic markers which allow the unambiguous identification of the major neural cell types in dissociated cell cultures of central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nervous system (PNS) tissues from a variety of animal species have recently been established. The use of many of these markers has also been extended to nervous tissue sections in which the in vivo properties of neural cells can be studied. Markers may be either cell surface or intracellular components of neural cells. Cell surface markers can be used to separate different cell types to produce purified cell populations. The ability of monoclonal antibodies to recognise single antigenic determinants is likely to prove superior to conventional heteroantisera in recognising cell surface antigens. Although the present techniques have intrinsic limitations, nonetheless both surface and intracellular markers should prove to be of great value in a wide range of biological and clinical neurological studies.