Ovarian hormone induced neural stem cell increase
AssigneeNeurostasis, Inc.
InventorsSamuel Weiss, Tetsuro Shingo
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
This invention provides a method of increasing the number of neural stem cells by using ovarian hormones. Ovarian hormones induce an increase in the number of neural stem cells, resulting in a larger pool of neural stem cells, which may be used in the treatment or amelioration of neurodegenerative diseases or conditions. Another aspect of the invention provides a method for identifying genes that regulate the ovarian hormone-induced stem cell increase.
Claims22
A method of increasing neural stem cell number, comprising providing an effective amount of an ovarian hormone to at least one neural stem cell under conditions which result in an increase in the number of neural stem cells.
A method of identifying a gene which participates in ovarian hormone induced neural stem cell increase, comprising:
- (a) providing a culture of neural stem cells;
- (b) incubating the culture of neural stem cells in the presence of an ovarian hormone;
- (c) preparing cDNA from neural stem cells cultured without the ovarian hormons and neural stem cells of step(b), respectively;
- and
- (d) comparing the cDNAs in step (c) to identify cDNAs which are induced or suppressed by the ovarian hormone.
A method of treating or ameliorating a neurodegenerative disease or condition in a mammal, comprising administering an effective amount of an ovarian hormone to the mammal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.