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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 May 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Neurosci. 2012 Oct 21;15(11):1485–1487. doi: 10.1038/nn.3233

Figure 3. Neural progenitor cell-secreted VEGF is necessary and sufficient for the regulation of microglia.

Figure 3

(a–b) VEGF regulates microglia in vitro. Microglia treated with recombinant VEGF show increased proliferation (a), chemotaxis (b), and phagocytosis (c) (n = 3–6 wells/condition). (d, e) Similarly, intrastriatal injection of VEGF induces an increase in cell number, activation and proliferation of microglia around the injection site (n = 5 mice/group). (f–i) NPC-derived VEGF is necessary for the regulation of microglia by NPCs. Immunodepletion of VEGF from NPC CM (f, g) (n = 10 mice/group) or depletion of VEGF from NPC CM by lentiviral shRNA-mediated knockdown in cultured NPCs (h, i) (n = 7 mice/group) attenuates the effects of NPC CM on microglia in vivo. For the representative confocal images of each in vivo experiment (d, f, h), brain sections were stained for Iba-1 (green) and CD68 (red); scale bar, 50 μm for all images (see Supplementary Fig. 4d, e, g for representative images of Iba-1/BrdU staining). Data are presented as mean + s.e.m. *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.001; ***, P < 0.0001 by one-way ANOVA with Dunnett’s Multiple Comparison Test (a–c, compared to control, white columns, no VEGF), paired two-tailed t test (e, i), or unpaired two-tailed t test (g).