The present invention relates to an enriched or purified preparation of isolated hippocampal neural progenitor cells and progeny thereof. The present invention also relates to a method of separating neural progenitor cells from a mixed population of cell types from hippocampal tissue. This method includes selecting a promoter which functions selectively in the neural progenitor cells, introducing a nucleic acid molecule encoding a fluorescent protein under control of said promoter into all cell types of the mixed population of cell types from hippocampal tissue, allowing only the neural progenitor cells, but not other cell types, within the mixed population to express said fluorescent protein, identifying cells of the mixed population of cell types that are fluorescent, which are restricted to the neural progenitor cells, and separating the fluorescent cells from the mixed population of cell types, wherein the separated cells are restricted to the neural progenitor cells.
Neuronal progenitor cells from hippocampal tissue and a method for isolating and purifying them