Suppression of kindling epileptogenesis by adenosine-releasing stem cell-derived brain implants

Epilepsy therapy is largely symptomatic and no effective therapy is available to prevent epileptogenesis. We set out to explore the potential of stem cell-derived brain implants to suppress the progressive development of seizures in the rat kindling-model. Embryonic stem (ES) cells, engineered to release the inhibitory neuromodulator adenosine by biallelic genetic disruption of the adenosine kinase gene (Adk-/-), and respective wild-type cells, were differentiated into neural precursor cells (NPs) and injected into the hippocampus of rats prior to kindling. Wild-type NP graft recipients were characterized by an…