Fig. 1

Direct induction of BFCNs from adult human skin fibroblasts. a A schematic representation of the reprogramming procedure. b Confocal images showing marker expression in hiBFCNs at 28 dpi. The virus-transduced cells are indicated by GFP fluorescence. Nuclei are counterstained with DAPI and include hiBFCNs and the co-cultured astrocytes. Scale bar, 50 μm. c Quantification of the reprogramming efficiency and neuronal purity. Cells were co-cultured with primary astrocytes and analyzed at 28 dpi (mean ± SEM; n = 3 independent samples; 10 randomly selected 20× fields per sample were examined). d-h Confocal images showing expression of the indicated markers in hiBFCNs co-cultured with astrocytes at 28 dpi. hiBFCNs do not express HB9 (h), a marker restricted to cholinergic motor neurons. Scale bar, 50 μm. i Marker expression by qRT-PCR analysis. Samples from fibroblasts, human brains, and hiMNs were used as controls. All gene expression was normalized to GAPDH