Reporting on methods to generate and purify rodent and human oligodendrocytes from different sources

•Generation of OPCs from pluripotent stem cells•RA and SAG increase the yield of OPCs production from mouse pluripotent stem cells.•Isolation of PDGFRα/CD140 + OPCs by FACS

Oligodendrocytes are part of the glial cells located in the central nervous system, capable of providing trophic support to neurons and ensheathing their axons. These cells can become dysfunctional under pathologic condition. Rodent and human pluripotent stem cells are inexhaustible sources for producing oligodendrocytes that can be used for disease modeling and cell replacement therapy studies. They also offer many opportunities to model the contribution of oligodendrocytes in non-genetic disorders such as multiple system atrophy. In this method article, we provide robust and reproducible differentiation protocols to obtain oligodendrocyte progenitor cells and purify them using fluorescence activated cell sorting.