CONTENTS -- Contributors -- Introduction -- Part I Regulation of Embryonic Neural Crest Cell Differentiation -- 1 The New Heart for the New Head Deborah J. Henderson and Bill Chaudhry -- New head - new heart -- Journey to the poles of the heart -- Are all neural crest cells the same? -- How do cardiac neural crest cells find their way? -- Forming an orderly queue -- What do the neural crest cells do in the cardiac outflow? -- Fated to die? -- Stabilising the pharyngeal arch arteries -- Neural crest survival and differentiation -- What heart malformations can be attributed to neural crest cells? -- Cardiac neural crest cells and human malformation -- References -- 2 Dual but Converging Roles: A Tale of Two Crests Michael Olaopa and Simon J Conway -- Introduction -- Neural crest formation and specification -- The cardiac neural crest lineage -- Migratory pathway -- Induction -- Colonisation of aortic arch arteries -- OFT formation -- Mouse models of congenital heart defects -- Human syndromes of congenital heart defects -- The trunk NC lineage -- Migratory pathway -- Induction -- Colonisation of sympathetic ganglia -- Adrenal gland formation -- Mouse models of sympathoadrenal defects -- Human syndromes of sympathoadrenal disease -- Functional duality of both crests -- Embryonic lethality associated with CNC -- Embryonic lethality associated with Trunk NC -- Acknowledgements -- References -- 3 The Cornea, Neural Crest and Stem Cells Charles Osei-Bempong, Haifa Ali and Sajjad Ahmad -- The cornea and its stem cells -- Embryology of the cornea -- Evidence for neural crest-derived stem cells in the cornea -- Mouse limbus-derived neural crest-derived stem cell-like cells -- Quail-chick chimeric grafts show multipotency of corneal keratocytes -- Role of transforming growth factor β2 in fate specification of neural crest-derived stem cells.

Neural crest-derived stem cells from the mouse corneal stroma are multipotent -- Chromosomal aberration of subcultured neural crest-derived stem cells -- Conclusion -- References -- Part II Adult Neural Crest Stem Cells -- 4 Characterisation of Neural Crest-Derived Stem Cells in Different Tissues Narihito Nagoshi and Hideyuki Okano -- Characterisation of embryonic NCSCs -- Bone marrow -- Skin -- Dorsal root ganglia -- Other tissues -- Various methods for identifying NCSCs -- Application of NCSCs to regenerative medicine -- Future prospects -- References -- 5 Epidermal Neural Crest Stem Cells Oliver Clewes and Maya Sieber-Blum -- Introduction -- Characterisation of mouse EPI-NCSC -- Mouse EPI-NCSC (mEPI-NCSC) grafts cause functional improvement in mouse models of spinal cord injury -- Human EPI-NCSC (hEPI-NCSC) -- Neural crest origin of hEPI-NCSC -- hEPI-NCSC are multipotent and capable of self-renewal -- Ex vivo expansion of hEPI-NCSC -- hEPI-NCSC express the six essential pluripotency genes at RNA and protein levels -- Directed differentiation of hEPI-NCSC into osteocytes -- Directed differentiation of hEPI-NCSC into melanocytes -- Conclusions -- References -- 6 Neural Crest Stem Cells from the Head Region Christian Kaltschmidt and Barbara Kaltschmidt -- Location of neural crest stem cells in the human head -- Human neural stem cells from the periodontal ligament (pdNSCs) -- Adult palatum as a novel source of neural crest-derived stem cells from rats and humans (pNC-SCs) -- Nasal turbinate -- Pre-clinical and clinical research -- Spinal cord -- Human spinal cord -- Bone repair -- Craniofacial reconstruction -- Parkinson's disease -- Acknowledgement -- References -- Index.