Figure 4.

Tm3 impacts on dendrites and Tm5NM1 affects both dendrites and axonal branching. All measurements were performed on 5-d-old neurons. A dendrite or branch was defined as a process that was >10 μm in length. The axon was the longest process, confirmed by the presence of phosphorylated neurofilament H. An average of 50 neurons from each group was selected from a number of chamber slides from two independent cultures. A nonparametric ANOVA test was chosen because the data did not display a Gaussian distribution. Asterisks indicate *p < 0.001, **p < 0.005, and ***p < 0.01. Note that the Tm3 neurons showed a significant decrease in the number of dendrites (A) and total length of dendrites (B). In contrast, an increase in the number and length of dendrites is seen in the Tm5NM1 (A and B). The Tm5NM1 neurons also showed a significant increase in the total axon length (C) due to an increase in the number of axonal branches (D). The data were also plotted as a % of neurons with a particular range of dendrites (E), dendrite length (F), number of 1° axonal branches (G), and total axon length (H). This shows that the Tm5NM1 neurons have a wider range of morphologies.