Figure 4.

Zinc promotes neuronal differentiation of AD-MSCs via downregulation of RhoA. Inactivation of RhoA is involved in neurite outgrowth of differentiated AD-MSCs. (a) Differentiated AD-MSCs were treated with or without CaEDTA and then incubated with ZnCl₂. GTP-RhoA levels were measured by pull-down assays with GST-RBD fusion protein and Sepharose beads. RhoA expression was determined with anti-RhoA antibody and Western blotting. (b) Proteins used in Western blotting were quantified by densitometry using ImageJ, and the relative amounts of the GTP-bound form in each sample are shown. The ratio of GTP-bound form/total protein in untreated cells was set as 1, and the data are means ± SD of at least three independent experiments (^∗p < 0.05 versus untreated with ZnCl₂; ^#p < 0.05 versus treated with ZnCl₂).