CD133 (Prominin) Negative Human Neural Stem Cells Are Clonogenic and Tripotent

Abstract

The finding that a significant fraction of clonogenic neural stem cells lack the established markers CD133 and CD15, and that some of these cells may be dormant or slow-cycling, has implications for approaches to identify and isolate neural stem cells and brain cancer stem cells. Our data also suggest the possibility that CD133 may be specifically down-regulated during G0/G1, and this should be considered when this marker is used to identify and isolate other tissue and cancer stem cells.