Fig. 1

Characterization of hippocampus neural stem cells and mature neurons. Representative phase contrast images of adult rat hippocampus neural stem cells (NSC) maintained in culture as floating neurospheres (a) or differentiated into single-layer mature neurons (MN) (b) as confirmed by the expression of specific makers nestin (c) and βIII-tubulin (d), respectively. Scale bar = 50 μm. (E) Representative western blot of NSC and MN total protein lysate showing the expression of stem cell markers (nestin and sox2) and the lack of expression of neuronal (NeuN and βIII-tubulin) markers in the NSC, and lack of stem cell markers (nestin and sox2) and expression of neuronal markers (βIII-tubulin and NeuN) in MN. Please note that the western blot in (e) is a composite image of several blots shown here in aggregate for clarity and demonstrative purposes. Images are representative of over 20 independent experiments using hippocampus NSC between passages 6–10