Fig. 1

Human neuronal like cells with cortical characteristics are induced by different transcription factor combinations. a Experimental design. b Nine different combinations of transcription factors convert human fibroblasts to MAP2⁺ neurons (scale bar = 20 μm), which generate action potentials upon 500 ms of 40, 80, 40, 30, 20, 40, 40, 200, and 140 pA current injections for BMNgn2, BMNgn2F, BMNgn2C, MNgn2, MNgn2F, MNgn2C, BMNd, BMF, and BMC, respectively. Human fetal primary cortical (hCtx) neurons for comparison (20 pA current injection) (horizontal bar: 0.1 s; vertical bar: 20 mV). c–e Neuronal conversion efficiency (n = 5) (c), neurite density as measured by immunoreactivity area (n = 3) (d), and expression of cortical markers (n = 3) (e), as revealed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), induced by different transcription factor combinations. Data re shown as mean ± SEM; n corresponds to a number of independent differentiation experiments