Figure 6.

TUDCA mediates neuronal rather than astroglial conversion of NSCs. NSCs were expanded and induced to differentiate for 24 h in the presence or absence of TUDCA and/or CsA or OligA. Cells were then collected for flow cytometry and immunocytochemistry, as described in Materials and Methods. (A) Flow cytometry analysis of the ratio between βIII-tubulin- and GFAP-positive cells cultured in optimized neuronal differentiation-inducing medium. (B) Representative images of immunofluorescence detection of cells labeled with anti- βIII-tubulin and anti-GFAP antibodies. Nuclei were stained with Hoechst 33258. Scale bar, 10 μm. (C) Flow cytometry analysis of the ratio between βIII-tubulin- and GFAP-positive cells cultured in optimized glial differentiation-inducing medium. Results are expressed as mean ± SEM fold-change for at least 3 different experiments. *P < 0.01 from non treated cells (control); ‡P < 0.01 and †P < 0.05 from cells treated with TUDCA alone.