Figure 3. Atoh1 lineage neurons are necessary for establishing the dendritic complexity of Purkinje cells.

(A) Representative images of Golgi-Cox-labeled Purkinje cells in the cerebella of control (top row) and En1^Cre/+;Atoh1^fl/- (bottom row) mice. (B) Sholl analysis for dendritic complexity. (C) Purkinje cells in En1^Cre/+;Atoh1^fl/- mice have shorter and less branched Purkinje cell dendrites (n=30/N=3 for each genotype, each animal is indicated with a differentially oriented triangle). (D) Golgi stains showing dendritic spines for control and En1^Cre/+;Atoh1^fl/- mice (examples indicated by green arrowheads). (E) En1^Cre/+;Atoh1^fl/- mice contain a significantly lower number of dendritic spines compared to control mice. *p<0.001 for spine density (n=15/N=3 for each genotype, each animal is indicated with a differentially oriented triangle). Linear mixed model with genotype as the fixed effect and mouse number as the random effect. *p<0.001 for both the distance from the soma, the branch number, and spine density. All images were acquired from the cerebella of P14 mice. The raw data and specific p-values for the comparisons are presented in Figure 3—source data 1.