Fig. 4: TNC promotes aberrant neurite outgrowth.

Luminescence imaging (a) and quantification (b) of tdTomato⁺ cutaneous nerves in self-control IMQ-induced Na_v1.8-tdTomato reporter mice (n = 4). c Representative whole-mount images of non-lesional or lesional skin in self-control IMQ-induced Na_v1.8-tdTomato reporter mice (n = 4). Scale bar, 50 μm. d Schematic diagram of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neuron and NC/Tnc^OE NIH-3T3 cell direct co-culture assay. NC negative control. Tnc^OE, Tnc-overexpressing. Representative immunofluorescent images (e) and quantification (f) of average neurite area per cell (stained for βIII tubulin, red) in the DRG neuron and NC/Tnc^OE NIH-3T3 cell direct co-culture dishes (n = 7). Scale bar in (e), 50 μm. g Schematic diagram of DRG neuron and NC/Tnc^OE NIH-3T3 cell co-culture chamber assay. Representative immunofluorescent images (h) and quantification (i) of neurite length (stained for βIII tubulin, red) in the DRG neuron and NC/Tnc^OE NIH-3T3 cell co-culture chambers. Scale bar in (h), 200 μm. Neurite lengths over 300 μm were calculated in (i, n = 103 for NC group and n = 188 for Tnc^OE group). Data are representatives of three independent experiments. Data in (f, i) are presented as the mean ± SEM. The P values were calculated by two-tailed paired (b) or unpaired (f, i) Student’s t-test. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.