Patent ID: 7041507

Claim:
A method of transdifferentiating an epidermal basal cell into a cell having one or more morphological, physiological and/or immunological features of a neuronal cell, comprising: (a) culturing an epidermal basal cell from a proliferating epidermal basal cell population derived from a patient's skin; (b) transfecting said epidermal basal cell, in vitro, with one or more eukaryotic expression vector(s) containing at least one cDNA encoding a human neurogenic transcription factor selected from the group consisting of NeuroD1, NeuroD2, ASH1, Zic1, Zic3, and MyT1, such that at least one of the neurogenic transcription factor(s) is expressed in said cell; (c) growing the transfected cell in the presence of at least one antisense oligonucleotide comprising a segment of a human MSX1 gene and/or human HES1 gene in an amount sufficient to suppress the expression of functional MSX1 gene product and/or HES1 gene product; and (d) growing said epidermal cell with a retinoid and at least one signal molecule selected from the group consisting of CNTF, sonic hedgehog, sonic hedgehog aminoterminal peptide, and IL-6, whereby the cell is transdifferentiated into a cell having one or more morphological, physiological and/or immunological feature(s) of a neuronal cell.