Impairment of the neuronal differentiation of NSC derived from prion infected mice.

<p>Immunofluorescence analysis of nestin, DCX, BetaIII-Tubulin and GFAP markers in differentiated NSC derived from the hippocampus (H) or Lateral ventricle (LV) of ME7 infected or non infected mice. (<b>A</b>. red: nestin; green: DCX, <b>B</b>. green: GFAP, red: BetaIII-Tubulin, blue: Hoechst nuclei coloration, scale bar 5 µm). <b>C</b>. Quantification of DCX and beta-III-Tubulin positive cells using ImageJ software. After differentiation induction, NSC gave rise to significantly more DCX positive cells in non infected conditions when compared with ME7 infected conditions (p<0.05 and p<0.01 by Mann-Whitney test). The number of neurons also differed significantly (p<0.01 by Mann-Whitney test) between non infected and infected NSC derived cells in differentiation conditions. Inversely astrocyte proportions were higher in the ME7 infected context (p<0.05 by Mann-Whitney test). Data represent means +/− SEM from one experiment performed in triplicate. Similar results were obtained in the three independent experiments.