Expression of neural precursor, astrocytic and neuronal markers by OL-like cells.

<p>The expression of the astrocytic marker GFAP (<i>A-D and I-J</i>), the neuronal marker beta-III-tubulin (<i>E-H and K-L</i>) and the neural precursor marker nestin (<i>M-P and Q-S</i>) in OL-like cells derived from OPC-like cells cultured on fibronectin (<i>A-H and M-P</i>) was determined by immunofluorescence microscopy. OL-like cells were differentiated for 10 days on laminin-2 (merosin)-coated wells, in the presence of T3 (thyroid hormone), F3 (contactin), T3+F3 or 7 days T3 followed by 3 days T3+F3 (T3+3d F3), as indicated. It was evident that the neural precursor marker nestin decreased in the OL-like stage of differentiation (<i>M-P</i>), as compared to NSC- or OPC-like cells (<i>R and S, respectively</i>), indicating maturation of the OL-like cells. It was also clear that the astrocytic marker GFAP was present in rat astrocytes as expected (<i>I</i>), but essentially absent in OL-like cells (<i>A-D</i>) or hUCM-MSCs (<i>J</i>). Similarly, the neuronal marker beta-III-tubulin was detected in the neuronal cell line SH-SY5Y (<i>K</i>) but undetected in OL-like cells (<i>E-H</i>) or hUCM-MSCs (<i>L</i>). Counterstaining of nuclei was performed with DAPI (in blue) and the scale bars represent 50 µm - scale bar in image (<i>P</i>) is representative for images (<i>A-P</i>) and scale bar in image (<i>S</i>) is representative for images (<i>Q-S</i>). Images are representative of at least 3 independent experiments.