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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 5. Beta-catenin signaling influences the laminar cell fate of upper-layer cortical projection neurons.

Figure 5

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 BRN1(A-C) or SATB2 (D-F), markers for cortical layers 2 to 4. The fractions of GFP+ cells that co-expressed BRN1 (G) in the three experimental groups were significantly different (p=0.0004, ANOVA; Newman-Keuls post-test analysis: Δ90β-catenin-GFP vs. DNTCF4-GFP p<0.001, Δ90β-catenin-GFP vs. GFP p<0.01, DNTCF4-GFP vs. GFP p<0.05). SATB2 expression (H) was also significantly different among the three groups (p=0.0013, ANOVA; Newman-Keuls post-test analysis: Δ90β-catenin-GFP vs. DNTCF4-GFP p<0.01, Δ90β-catenin-GFP vs. GFP p<0.05, DNTCF4-GFP vs. GFP p<0.05). Increasing β-catenin signaling by Δ90β-catenin-GFP decreased the fraction of BRN1+ cells (0.267 ± 0.034 ± s.e.m., n=255) and SATB2+ cells (0.304 ± 0.013 ± s.e.m., n=117) while blocking β-catenin signaling increased the fraction of BRN1 (0.740 ± 0.017 ± s.e.m., n=351) and SATB2 ((0.817 ± 0.041 ± s.e.m., n=232), when compared to GFP control (BRN1: 0.534 ± 0.065 ± s.e.m., n=634; SATB2: 0.577 ± 0.079 ± s.e.m., n=453). Arrows in insets (A′,A″,B′,B″,C′,C″) denote BRN1+ cells; arrowheads denote BRN1-. Arrows in insets (D′,D″,E′,E″,F′,F″) denote SATB2+ cells; arrowheads denote SATB2- cells. The top panel for each inset shows BRN1 or SATB2 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.