Nestin structure and assembly into intermediate filament. a Molecular structure of Nestin. Nestin shares a common structure with the other intermediate filaments that consists of a central α-helical rod domain (blue) of conserved size, flanked by a globular N-terminus (‘head’, red) and C-terminus (‘tail’, green) domains.

Nestin expression was downregulated when EPCs matured into ECs in vitro. Likewise, in the CNS, nestin was expressed in neural stem/progenitor cells and was downregulated upon differentiation (Frederiksen and McKay 1988; Dahlstrand et al. 1995). Some (∼10%) bone marrow MNCs were found to express nestin. When MNCs were cultured and induced ...