Fig. 3

Transplanted cells survive within the stroke affected brain. Total number (a) and percentage (b) of HuNu-positive cells remaining within cortical and striatal grafts from undifferentiated (n = 7) and predifferentiated (n = 7) treatment groups. Data presented as mean ± SEM. ****P <0.0001 relative to undifferentiated treated animals in the same region; ####P <0.0001 relative to undifferentiated grafts within the cortex; ϕP <0.05 relative to predifferentiated grafts within the striatum (two-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni post test). Transplanted cells immunopositive for HuNu (red) (c, f) did not express apoptotic markers including Casp3 (green) (d), merged image (e), or TUNEL (g), with the level of TUNEL staining similar to the contralateral mirror image (h). Transplanted HuNu-positive (red) predifferentiated cells were associated with vWF-stained blood vessels (green) within infarcted brain regions (i). Many HuNu-positive undifferentiated hNSCs (red) were found within border regions consisting of GFAP-positive astrocytes (green) (j). Magnified immunofluorescent image (k) corresponds to box highlighted in (j) illustrating incorporation of undifferentiated hNSCs into the glial scar bordering the infarct. Scale bar: (c–e) 20 μm, (f–h) 100 μm, (i, k) 200 μm, (j) 100 μm. C contralateral hemisphere, Casp3 cleaved caspase-3, GFAP glial fibrillary acidic protein, HuNu human specific nuclear antigen, I ipsilateral hemisphere, TUNEL terminal transferase-mediated dUTP nick end-labeling, vWF von Willebrand factor