Figure 10.

Proliferation and differentiation fate of NPC in vitro from adult SVZ. A, Comparison of the expansion rate of adult SVZ NPC from WT and R6/2 mice. The SVZ from five WT and four R6/2 mice, aged 9 weeks, were grown as free-floating neurospheres in 10 tissue culture flasks each for the first three passages and two to four each for subsequent passages. The expansion rate represents the number of dissociated cells at each passage divided by the seedingdensity. The expansion rate of WT and R6/2 mice was the same (t test, p = 0.446). Data have been transformed by square root, and each point represents means ± SEM of each culture. B, Comparison of the differentiation fate of dissociated adult SVZ NPC from WT and R6/2 mice at passage 1. Numbers of neurons or astrocytes are expressed as the percentage of Hoechst-positive cells. Each bar represents means ± SEM for each culture, and statistical comparisons are made using a two-tailed Mann–Whitney U test. There was no difference in differentiation fate between genotypes at passage 1 (for β-tubulin III-positive neurons, p = 0.960; for GFAP-positive astrocytes, p = 0.363).