Immortalized Human Neural Progenitor Cells from the Ventral Telencephalon with the Potential to Differentiate into GABAergic Neurons

Human neural progenitor cells (hNPCs) are believed to have important potential in clinical applications and basic neuroscience research. In the present study, we created a new immortalized human neural cell line, hSN12W-TERT, derived from human fetal ventral telen-cephalon, using IRES-based retroviral overexpression of human telomerase reverse transcriptase. We showed that after more than 40 passages, hSN12W-TERT cells possess high telomerase activity, maintain a normal diploid karyotype, and retain the characteris-tics of hNPCs. Under proliferative conditions, these cells remained undifferentiated, expressing the neural progenitor cell markers nestin, vimentin, and Sox2. The cells were able to differentiate into neurons, astro-cytes, and oligodendrocytes after a significan