Objective To study the abilities of cell renewal and neuronal differentiation of retinal stem cells (RSCs) by comparing the characteristics with neural stem cells (NSCs) in aspects of cell proliferation and differentiation. Methods Experimental study. Cells of the ciliary body zone of postnatal 10 d rat and the brain of neonate rat were isolated respectively by enzymatic digestion, then were cultivated with serum-free DMEM/FI2 medium, 20 μg/L basic fibrulast growth factor (bFGF), 20 μg/L epithelial growth factor (EGF) and 1×B27 Supplement, the characteristics of proliferation of two kinds of cells were observed and compared. These two kinds of cells were identified by detection of nestin and 5-bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) by immunocytochemistry staining, differentiation of RSCs and NSCs was induced by DMEM/F12 medium with 50 ml/L fetal bovine serum and 1 ×N2Supplement. The differentiated characteristics of two kinds of cells were observed, the marker nestin was detected after cell differentiation, the neuron marker neurone specific enolase (NSE) and glial marker glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) of two kinds of cells were also detected by immunocytochemistry staining. A x2 test was used to test data. Results In the primary cultivation of both RSCs and NSCs, cell spheres with high refraction were observed 48 hour after isolation and cultivation. The passage of the cells was about in the 7th day of cultivation, and the cells of the next passage could also form the spherical shape. The expression of marker nestin and BrdU could be detected both in RSCs and NSCs by immunocytochemistry staining. The proliferation ability of RSCs was lower than NSCs. Both RSCs and NSCs became adherent to the bottom of the culture dish in the induced condition with serum, and some of the cells differentiated into cells with neuronal cell shapes. In the 7th day after differentiation, the ratio of nestin-positive cells was 9.5%±3.5% in RSCs,and which was 9.1%±0.7% in NSCs. The ratio of NSE-positive cells (11.2%+2.8%), and the ratio of GFAP-positive cells (18.9%+2.1%) in the differentiated RSCs were significantly lower than those in the differentiated NSCs (34.1%±6.3% and 41.9%±3.3%) respectively, the differences were significant (x2=103.23, 74.36, P＜0.05 for both). Conclusion The characteristics of the shape, proliferation and differentiation of RSCs from ciliary body zone are similar comparing with NSCs, but the abilities of proliferation and neuronal differentiation of RSCs are lower than NSCs.