Figure 3.

Culture protocols to induce neural differentiation of hDPSCs. (A) When grown in the same serum-free media, hDPSCs form pulp dentospheres which are morphologically and functionally similar to brain neurospheres. (B) Like neurospheres, dentospheres can be disaggregated to generate neuronal and glial marker expressing cells in the presence of neural induction media. The same hDPSCs in the presence of fetal serum (FBS) differentiate preferentially to non-neural cell lineages. However, it is also possible to generate non-neural cells from pulp dentospheres in serum-free media, and also to induce a neural-like differentiation from hDPSCs when these are switched from serum-containing to serum-free neural induction media.