Isolation of c-Kit+ human amniotic fluid stem cells from second trimester

Amniotic fluid-derived stem (AFS) cells have been described as an appealing source of stem cells because of their (1) fetal, non-embryonic origin, (2) easy access during pregnancy overcoming the ethical issues related both to the use of human embryonic cells and to the postnatal tissue biopsy with donor site mor- bidity, and (3) their undemanding ability to be expanded. We and others have demonstrated the broad differentiation potential and here we describe the established protocol we developed to obtain c-Kit+ human AFS cells, starting from second trimester amniocentesis samples.