Alpha-Tocopherol increases the proliferation of induced pluripotent stem cell derived neural progenitor cells

Demyelination as the main hallmark of multiple sclerosis (MS) is caused by immune cells activation against the myelin of the central nervous system (CNS). Demyelination disrupts the nerve signal transmission and eventually results in axonal degeneration (Radtke et al., 2007). Myelin repair or remyelination occurs in almost newly affected patients as a spontaneous process (Patrikios et al., 2006), but as the disease progresses, the process fails and leads to progressive disability in the patients (Martino et al., 2010, Tripathi et al., 2010). A variety of endogenous cells including neural stem/ progenitor cells (NS/PCs) and oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) participate in the processes of remyelination. NS/PCs are scattered within the brain parenchyma but they are main ly located within the subventricular zone (SVZ) of lateral ventricles and the subgranular zone of dentate gyrus of hippocampus (Miller and GauthierFisher, 2009). The OPCs are scattered throughout the white and gray matters of brain (Pluchino and Martino, 2008, Zhao et al., 2008). Evidence shows that Physiology and