Patent ID: 8257696

Claim:
A method of increasing a population of neuronal cells of a neural tissue of a subject, comprising the steps of: (a) obtaining a population of isolated somatic astroglial progenitor cells expressing GFAP and capable of being maintained for at least 300 days in culture and at least 60 cell divisions, wherein the step (a) of obtaining the population of isolated somatic astroglial progenitor cells comprises the steps of: (i) obtaining a neural tissue from an adult subject; (ii) triturating the neural tissue, or a sample thereof, to produce a suspension comprising neural cells of the neural tissue; (iii) introducing said suspension of neural cells to a tissue culturing system having an uncoated substrate surface; (iv) culturing the cells under conditions suitable for the proliferation of said neural cells; (v) removing unattached neural cells from the tissue culturing system, delivering said unattached neural cells to an uncoated substrate of a tissue culturing system, and culturing said cells under conditions suitable for the proliferation of said cells as an adherent layer on the uncoated substrate of the tissue culturing system, and not as neurospheres, wherein said conditions comprise a proliferative medium comprising N2 supplements, bovine pituitary extract, fetal calf serum, EGF and FGF; and (vi) isolating said adherent layer of cultured cells from the tissue culturing system, thereby obtaining a population of isolated somatic astroglial progenitor cells; and (b) delivering the population of isolated somatic astroglial progenitor cells into a recipient subject, whereupon at least a fraction of the population of said delivered isolated somatic astroglial progenitor cells differentiates into neuronal cells but not into oligodendrocytes, thereby increasing a population of neuronal cells in the recipient subject, or differentiating at least a fraction of the population of isolated somatic astroglial progenitor cells into neuronal cells but not into oligodendrocytes and delivering said neuronal cells into a recipient subject, thereby increasing a population of neuronal cells of the recipient subject.