Figure 5

Thyroid hormones and their derivatives induce DA neurons in rat and human NPCs endogenously expressing NURR1. (A) Rat VM NPCs treated with derivatives #3 or #9 or T4 differentiated into DA neurons after 10 days. The cells were immunostained with an anti-TH antibody. TH expression increased following treatment. (B) RT-PCR analysis of DA neuron-related genes (TH and Dat) in derivative #3-, derivative #9-, and T4-treated cells. (C) Human ESC-derived DA NPCs were treated with derivative #3, derivative #9, or T4 during the differentiation period. On differentiation day 14, immunocytochemistry was performed using an anti-TH antibody. (D) The mRNA levels of DA neuron–related genes (TH, Nurr1, En1, and Lmx1b) increased following treatment with derivative #3 and T4. GAPDH expression was used as a loading control. **p < 0.01, Scale bar, 20 μm. The error bars are the S.E. from two independent experiments.