Pharmacological Transdifferentiation of Human Nasal Olfactory Stem Cells into Dopaminergic Neurons

Figure 3

Time-dependent expression of dopaminergic (DA) neuron-specific transcripts and proteins. (a) Principal component analysis (PCA) representation, based on the expression of 27 target genes, indicated a strong correlation between the three donors at various time points: Day -15, Day 0, Day 2, Day 10, Day 14, Day 21, Day 28, Day 35, and Day 42. (b) Heatmap of the 27 target genes. Some genes remained underexpressed (green) along the entire procedure while expression of others increased, resulting in overexpression (red) at the end of the differentiation sequences. (c–f) Time-dependent increase in transcript expression for four major DA neuron-associated genes: LMX1B (c), RBFOX3 (d), LMX1A (e), and PITX3 (f). Bottom and top red lines indicate the thresholds for detection (undetectable below the bottom red line) and quantification, respectively. Between the two red lines, the gene is detected but not precisely quantified as the Ct signal is below the limit of quantification. Above the top red line, the gene is correctly expressed and quantified. (g, h) Protein identification via western blotting: at Day 42, OE-MSCs from the three donors produce LMX1A (g) and PITX3 (h).

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