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. 2022 May 16;12(9):4288–4309. doi: 10.7150/thno.70929

Figure 3.

Figure 3

Grafted NPC- and Olig2PC-Astros promote serotonergic axon regeneration and synapse formation after SCI. (A) Schematic of quantification strategy for serotonergic axon regeneration (top) and synapse formation (bottom) in the caudal spinal cord. sRST, serotonergic raphespinal tract. (B-D) Representative images showing co-staining for 5-HT (green) and GFAP (red) in spinal cord sagittal sections from vehicle, NPC-Astro, and Olig2PC-Astro groups at 8 weeks post-transplantation. B1-B3, C1-C3, and D1-D3 are higher magnification images of boxed areas in B-D. Dashed lines indicate lesion borders. Scale bars: 200 μm (B-D), 20 μm (D1-D3). (E) Quantification of serotonergic axons rostral and caudal to lesion sites in vehicle (n = 9), NPC-Astro (n = 12), and Olig2PC-Astro (n = 10) groups. Two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey's multiple comparisons test. Data are mean ± SD; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. (F-H) Z-stacked images of triple immunostaining in vehicle, NPC-Astro, and Olig2PC-Astro groups. F1-H1 are higher magnification images of boxed areas in F-H. In G1 and H1, regenerated serotonergic axons (5-HT, red) co-localized with synaptophysin (green), which appears to be directly associated with host motor neurons (ChAT, blue). Scale bars: 10 μm (F-H), 1 μm (F1-H1).