Bone-marrow-derived stem cells have been shown to contribute to Purkinje neurons in the cerebellum of adult humans and mice. A new study identifies cell fusion as the mechanism underlying this phenomenon, and shows that the bone marrow cell portion of the resulting binucleate heterokaryons acquires the morphological and molecular characteristics of Purkinje neurons over time.
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Kozorovitskiy, Y., Gould, E. Stem cell fusion in the brain. Nat Cell Biol 5, 952–954 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb1103-952
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb1103-952
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