Figure 2.

The developing central nervous system of p63^−/− mice does not exhibit increased apoptosis. (A) Corresponding coronal brain sections from p63^−/− and WT littermate embryos were assayed by immunohistochemistry to detect cleaved Caspase 3 (E18), or stained by TUNEL (P0) to visualize spontaneously apoptotic cells. (B) Quantification of cleaved Caspase 3 levels in the ventricular and subventricular zones (VZ/SVZ) and cortical plate (not shown) of p63^−/− embryos versus WT littermates at the indicated stages. The percentage of positively stained areas were quantified in brain sections of 2–5 animals per genotype and embryonic stage. At least three coronal sections per animal were analyzed per data point. Error bars represent the standard deviation (SD) of the mean. No significant difference was found between the genotypes (Student's t-test). (C) Immunohistochemical analysis of cleaved Caspase 3 in spinal cord at stage E18 revealed no difference in the number of apoptotic cells.