Fig. 5

Functional assays of acquisition of mature phenotype. a-d Immunostaining of hSSC-derived neurons for TH (a) and synapsin (b) after 3 weeks of differentiation. Notably, DAPI staining (c) was used to visualize nuclei. e–h Immunostaining of hSSCs for TH and synapsin. i Western blot analysis of synapsin expression in hSSC-derived DA neurons after induction for 1, 2 and 3 weeks, respectively. β-actin served as a loading control. j Dopamine production of hSSCs in induction medium for 1, 2 and 3 weeks, respectively. Data from three independent experiments are reported as the means ± SEM. “^##” and “**” represent p < 0.01 vs corresponding controls. Notably, “^##” compared to LUHMES, a type of human mesencephalic dopaminergic neuron line, as a positive control of native DA expression. Scale bars = 50 μm