Fig. 2.

Neural progenitor cell differentiation. a Brightfield images displaying the morphological changes in NPCs following differentiation into midbrain dopaminergic neurons, immature neurons (after two weeks of differentiation) and maturing neurons (after five weeks of differentiation). Scale bar – 200 μm. b Sp8 confocal images showing presence of DCX, NFL, SOX1, (low) TUBB3, Nestin, KI67 in the hESC-derived NPCs. With staining showing negative expression of INA, NFH and AE1/AE3. Scale bar – 42 μm. Presence of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) in green. Expression marked by white arrows. c Fold change of neural markers comparing midbrain neurons (n = 2 samples), immature neurons (n = 2), and maturing neurons (n = 2 samples at two weeks of maturation and n = 2, 5 weeks) to NPC protein expression SEM bar (∗p ≤ 0.05, significance was determined by unpaired t-test).