Glial scar brain and spinal cord. FGF2 has also been shown to increase astrocyte proliferation "in vitro". Ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) is a cytosolic protein that is not secreted. CNTF has been shown to promote the survival of neuronal cultures "in vitro", and it can also act as a differentiator and trophic factor on glial cells. Further, CNTF has been previously shown to affect the differentiation of glial precursor cells "in vitro"; however, the influence of CNTF in the "in vivo" setting has only recently been determined. Winter "et al." used CNTF over-expressing transgenic mice as well as wildtype controls that had
Amniotic stem cells confirmed as mesenchymal stem cells were obtained. In addition, evidence indicated that embryonic stem cells are part of the fluid, although in very small quantities. At around the same time, it was determined that stem cells from the amniotic membrane also have multipotent potential. AS their differentiation into neural and glial cells as well as hepatocyte precursors was observed. The majority of stem cells present in the amniotic fluid share many characteristics, which suggests they may have a common origin. In 2007, it was confirmed that the amniotic fluid contains a heterogeneous mixture of multipotent cells after it was demonstrated