Patent Document ID: 6087168
Application ID: 09234332
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of transdifferentiating an epidermal basal cell into a cell having a morphological, physiological and/or immunological feature of a viable neuronal cell, comprising the steps of: (a) obtaining 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, or homologous non-human counterpart, 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) adding at least one antisense oligonucleotide comprising a segment of a human MSX1 gene or human HES1 gene, or homologous non-human counterpart of either of these, to an in vitro growth medium, thereby suppressing at least one negative regulator of neuronal differentiation; and (d) growing the transfected epidermal cell with a retinoid and at least one neurotrophin from the group consisting of BDNF, NGF, NT-3, and NT-4, or a cytokine comprising IL-6, whereby said epidermal cell is transdifferentiated into a cell that comprises one or more morphological neurite-like processes at least about 50 micrometers in length and expresses at least one neural-specific antigen selected from the group consisting of neurofilament M, neural-specific tubulin, neural-specific enolase, and microtubule associated protein 2.