Fig. 3: Opposing chromatin changes in quiescent and activated neural stem cells during aging are associated with functional defects in cell adhesion and migration.
a, Representative images of live young and old aNSCs/NPCs stained with Syto64 taken before and Accutase treatment. Scale bar, 800 μm. b, Percentage of cells remaining of young and old qNSCs after trypsin treatment. Each dot represents the average percentage of cells remaining after trypsin treatment of 2–4 technical replicates per primary culture derived from an individual mouse. n = 8 young and n = 8 old male mice. c, Percentage of cells remaining of young and old aNSCs/NPCs after Accutase treatment. Each dot represents the average percentage of cells remaining after Accutase treatment of 2–4 technical replicates per primary culture derived from an individual mouse. a,c, n = 11 young and n = 11 old male mice. d, Representative images of the migration path of a young aNSC or NPC. Color bar represents the passage of time from 0 h (blue) to 20 h (red). Scale bars, 50 μm. e, Migration speed of young and old qNSCs. n = 6 young and n = 4 old male mice. f, Migration speed of young and old aNSCs/NPCs. e,f, Each dot represents the average velocity over a 20-h period of 5–42 cells in a primary culture derived from an individual mouse. d,f, n = 9 young and n = 7 old male mice. g, Representative images of young and old aNSC/NPC dispersion through Matrigel. The outer dashed line represents the outermost extent of invasion and the inner dashed line represents the initial extent of the cells after plating (t = 0 h). Scale bar, 800 μm. h, Migration distance of young and old aNSC/NPC dispersion through Matrigel over 48 h. At each time point, distance was averaged over 1–4 technical replicates from a primary culture derived from an individual mouse. g,h, n = 7 young and n = 10 old male mice. All data are the mean ± s.e.m. Data were combined over six (a and c), two (b, e, g and h) or three (d and f) independent experiments. All statistical comparisons were made using a two-tailed Mann–Whitney.
