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Max Planck Researchers discover new stem cell type in the outer ventricular zone of the brain

Evolution came up with quite a smart trick for the development of mammalian brains: A zone, the subventricular zone (SVZ), is formed by progenitor cells and added to the ventricular zone with its neuronal stem cells. Here in this SVZ, the majority of nerve cells of the cerebral cortex is generated.

In the outer region of the SVZ, called outer subventricular zone (OSVZ), a neural progenitor cell type can be found in primates - including humans. Neither the function nor any details on the structure of this cell type was known so far. A research team of the Dresden MPI-CBG has studied these cells in detail and now published the rather surprising characteristics of OSVZ-progenitors: They are in contact with the basal membrane of the growing brain. Thus, these cells become stem cell-like and can constantly divide - this is necessary to produce many nerve cells. Moreover, the Dresden team could show that the protein integrin is needed to drive the cell divisions in the OSVZ. The researchers believe to have unraveled an important mechanism that grows the human brain as big as it is - and which is not the case with other mammalian brains.  (Nature Neuroscience, May 2, 2010)

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Drawing by Sebastijan Camagajevac