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Brief Communication

Nature Neuroscience 4, 1163–1164 (1 December 2001) | doi:10.1038/nn762

Induction of photoreceptor-specific phenotypes in adult mammalian iris tissue

Masatoshi Haruta , Mitsuko Kosaka , Yumi Kanegae , Izumu Saito , Tomoyuki Inoue , Ryoichiro Kageyama , Akihiro Nishida , Yoshihito Honda & Masayo Takahashi

We show that iris tissue in the adult rat eye, which is embryonically related to the neural retina, can generate cells expressing differentiated neuronal antigens. In addition, the Crx gene transfer induced the specific antigens for rod photoreceptors in the iris-derived cells, which was not seen in the adult hippocampus-derived neural stem cells.