Figure 2. Ptbp1 depletion does not induce the astrocyte-to-neuron transition in striatum.

(A) Representative images of control and Ptbp1 cKO mouse striatum collected 12 weeks after tamoxifen injection. White boxes indicate the location of images shown in Figure 2B. Scale bars are 100 μm. (B) Representative immunostaining images of mouse striatum collected 12 weeks after tamoxifen induction. White arrowheads in the control panels indicate the expression of PTBP1 in astrocytes (tdT⁺ cells). Yellow arrowheads indicate the efficient PTBP1 depletion in Ptbp1 cKO astrocytes. The absence of NeuN⁺tdT⁺ cells in the striatum demonstrates no astrocyte-to-neuron conversion with Ptbp1 depletion. Scale bars are 100 μm. (C) Quantification of striatal tdT⁺ astrocyte proportion at 4, 8, and 12 weeks following tamoxifen induction. (D-E) Quantification of Ptbp1 knockout efficiency in control and Ptbp1 cKO mouse striatum at 4, 8, and 12 weeks following tamoxifen induction. (F) Quantification of PTBP1⁺NeuN⁺ double positive cells indicating PTBP1 is not expressed in striatal neurons. (G) Quantification of NeuN⁺tdT⁺ cells indicating absence of astrocyte-to-neuron conversion in the striatum. (H) Quantification of NeuN⁺ cells at 4, 8, and 12 weeks following tamoxifen induction showing minimal changes in the proportion of neurons in control or Ptbp1 cKO striatum. Animal numbers are n=3 for both control and KO groups at all three time points. For quantification, the individual cortical images taken per brain are N=4-6 for 4 weeks, 3-6 for 8 weeks and 4-6 for 12 weeks. The quantification results represent the average and stdev of biological replicates (n). The significance test was carried out by t-test, *p< 0.05, **p< 0.01, ***p< 0.001 and “ns” means no difference with p>0.05.