Neuron: Human Star-shaped glial cell "killer" nature proves for the first time

In view of the key role of human astrocytes in the central nervous system, we urgently need to study new methods of human astrocytesrecently, researchers have discovered that CD49f is a new type of human star-shaped glial cell marker that is expressed in both the healthy and sick fetal and adult brainsCD49f can be used to purify fetal astrocytes and human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) derived from astrocytesin addition, the researchers provided CD49f-positive single-cell-astrocytes-astrocytes for single-cell and common transcriptome analysis and demonstrated that they performkey astrocytes functions in vitro, including neuronal nutritional support, glutamate intake, and phagocytosisnoteworthy is that CD49f-positive hiPSC-astrocytes respond to inflammatory stimuli by obtaining An1-like reactive states that show impaired phagocytosis and glutamate intake, and fail to support neuronal maturationmost importantly, the researchers also found that conditional media from human-reactive A1-like astral cells were toxic to both human and rodent neuronstherefore, CD49f-positive hiPSC-astrocytes is a valuable resource for studying the function and dysfunction of astrocytes in healthy and diseased individuals