Medical Definition of Ciliary neurotrophic factor
1.
Neurotrophic factor originally characterised as a survival factor for chick ciliary neurons in vitro.
Subsequently shown to promote the survival of a variety of other neuronal cell types and to promote the differentiation of bipotential O2A progenitor cells to type 2 astrocytes in vitro.
Molecular cloning and expression studies indicate that CNTF is a cytosolic protein. Developmental expression and regional distribution studies show that, unlike NGF, CNTF is not a target derived neurotrophic factor.
This entry appears with permission from the Dictionary of Cell and Molecular Biology
(11 Mar 2008)
Lexicographical Neighbors of Ciliary Neurotrophic Factor
Other Resources:
