Astrocyte cells in the brain can be reprogrammed into neurons using a precise sequence of molecules. The technique may one day be useful in brain repair.

Similar cells have previously been reprogrammed into neurons using viruses, but Gong Chen and Gang-Yi Wu at Pennsylvania State University in University Park and their colleagues now show that the transformation can be done with small molecules.

They treated human astrocytes with nine different molecules in sequence, converting them into neurons that survived for more than five months in culture and more than one month after transplantation into a mouse brain. The method works for human brain astrocytes but not for human spinal astrocytes or mouse astrocytes, suggesting that different sets of molecules may be needed for different astrocytes or to obtain different neuronal subtypes, the authors report.

Cell Stem Cell http://doi.org/8m5 (2015)