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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Apr 28.
Published in final edited form as: J Neurosci. 2009 Oct 28;29(43):13710–13719. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3022-09.2009

Figure 4. Beta-catenin signaling influences the laminar cell fate of deep-layer cortical projection neurons.

Figure 4

E13.5 embryos were electroporated with Δ90β-cateninGFP (N=4 brains), DNTCF4-GFP (N=3 brains) or GFP (N=4 brains) constructs. Embryos were sacrificed at E19.5 and sections were stained for GFP and FOXP2 (A-C) or CTIP2 (D-F), markers for cortical layers 5 and 6. The fractions of GFP+ cells co-expressing FOXP2 (G) among the 3 groups were significantly different (p<0.0001, ANOVA; Newman-Keuls post-test analysis: Δ90β-catenin-GFP vs. DNTCF4-GFP p<0.001, Δ90β-catenin-GFP vs. GFP p<0.001, DNTCF4-GFP vs. GFP p<0.05). CTIP2 expression (H) was also significantly different among the three groups (p=0.0010, ANOVA; Newman-Keuls post-test analysis: Δ90β-catenin-GFP vs. DNTCF4-GFP p<0.001, Δ90β-catenin-GFP vs. GFP p<0.05, DNTCF4-GFP vs. GFP p<0.01). Increasing β-catenin signaling by Δ90β-catenin-GFP increased the fraction of FOXP2+ cells (0.580 ± 0.018 ± s.e.m., n=581) and CTIP2+ cells (0.548 ± 0.016 ± s.e.m., n=142), while blocking beta-catenin signaling decreased the fraction of FOXP2 (0.287 ± 0.027 ± s.e.m., n=376) and CTIP2 (0.197 ± 0.054 ± s.e.m., n=297) positive cells, when compared to control (FOXP2: 0.370 ± 0.018 ± s.e.m., n=504; CTIP2: 0.407 ± 0.015 ± s.e.m., n=496). Arrows in insets (A′,A″,B′,B″,C′,C″) denote FOXP2+ cells; arrowheads denote FOXP2- cells. Arrows in insets (D′,D″,E′,E″,F′,F″) denote CTIP2+ cells; arrowheads denote CTIP2- cells. The top panel for each inset shows FOXP2 or CTIP2 immunofluorescence, while the bottom panels show merged images. “*” represents p<0.05, “* *” represents p<0.01, “* * *” represents p<0.001. Scale bars are 100 μm and 25 μm in insets. Brackets on graphs show s.e.m.