Overexpressing SH2B1β enhances BDNF-induced neurite outgrowth and branching in hippocampal neurons.

<p>(A) E18 primary hippocampal neurons were transiently transfected with either GFP or GFP-SH2B1β on DIV 4. One day after transfection, neurons were treated with 50 ng/ml BDNF for 2 days. The morphology of the neurons was visualized on DIV 7 by Zeiss LSM510 meta confocal microscope using 20X (NA/0.75) objective. Boxes mark the neurites of hippocampal neurons. Enlarged images of the neurites and branching are shown on the right panels. Scale bar = 10 µm. (B) Neurite length of the transfected neurons were measured as described in the Materials and Methods. Average length of the longest neurite per neuron. The length of neurites were measured using Simple Neurite Tracer plug-in of the ImageJ software. (*: P<0.05, compared with GFP without BDNF). (C) The number of end-points were quantified by ImageJ software. 15–20 GFP- or GFP-SH2B1β-transfected hippocampal neurons were counted from three independent experiments. Values are mean ± SE from three independent experiments and statistically compared by student’s <i>t</i>-test (*: P<0.05).