Loss of sensory neurons in the dorsal root ganglia (DRG) may be a cause of neuropathic pain following traumatic nerve lesion or surgery. To regenerate peripheral sensory neurons, satellite glial cells (SGCs) may be an attractive endogenous cell source. SGCs are known to acquire certain neural progenitor-like properties after injury and are derived from the same neural crest lineage as sensory neurons. Here, we found that adult mouse DRG harbor SGC-like cells that dedifferentiate into glial sensory progenitor cells in vitro . Surprisingly, forced coexpression of the early developmental transcription factors Neurog1 and Neurog2 was sufficient to induce neuronal and glial cell phenotypes. In the presence of nerve growth factor, the induced neurons developed a nociceptor phenotype characterized by functional expression of marker ion channels such as TrpA1, TrpV1 and TTX-resistant Na V channels. Our study demonstrates that glial cells harvested from the adult DRG have neural stem cell-like properties, are multipotent, and may be useful for future neural repair strategies in the peripheral nervous system.

Summary statement

The adult dorsal root ganglion carries a satellite glial cell source for generation of induced nociceptor-like neurons. The cells dedifferentiate in vitro and acquire properties of a multipotent peripheral neural progenitor.