Light and electron microscopy.

<p>Sagittal sections corresponding to the center of injury approximately 2 months after injury. H&E stained paraffin sections of spinal cords from animals subjected to contusive SCI and treated with human fibroblasts (A) or hES-derived OPCs (B) Arrows indicate areas of neuron like tracts transversing the center of injury in OPC treated rats. This is consistent with LFB (blue) and cresyl violet (purple) staining which showed significantly more cavitation (dotted circles) in the human fibroblast-treated group (C) compared to the hES-derived OPC group (D). Specifically the fibroblast treated groups shows overall loss of tissue integrity with reduced LFB and cresyl violet staining, while the OPC treated group shows the presence of neurons, stained with cresyl violet surrounded by LFB staining. Transmission electron microscopy of sagittal sections of spinal cords also showed disrupted myelin for the fibroblast-treated group (E), whereas remyelination with thin, compact sheaths was observed for the hES-OPC group (F, arrowheads). Rats treated with heat-killed OPCs (G) were similar to fibroblast controls. Magnification: (A–D, G) 40x and (E, F) 5000x. These results were verified by quantitative analysis demonstrating (H) an increase in myelin staining by LFB, (I) the number of axons identified by cresyl violet and (J) by the extent of myelination demonstrated by electron microscopy in the hES-OPC group compared to controls. Error bars represent standard deviations. Asterisks denotes statistical significance between fibroblast and ES-OPC groups (P<0.00).</p

SSEP results showing functional improvements in spinal cord injured rats following transplantation of hES-derived OPCs compared with rats receiving no treatment.

<p>A) Representative mean SSEP sweeps from one rat from each experimental group. Left: SSEPs recorded upon hindlimb stimulation following T8 contusion; Right: internal controls due to forelimb stimulation. B) Amplitude (hindlimbs) results quantified for the two experimental groups showing a significant benefit for OPC transplantation versus no treatment. C) Latency (hindlimbs) results reveal that the OP-transplant group exhibited remyelination, as the time of the SSEP signal transduction reduces back to baseline values. This result is indicative of higher conductivity of axonal pathways, which leads to lower latencies for the OPC-transplant group. D) Latencies of forelimb SSEPs over time did not change post-injury in both groups indicating no harm to forelimb sensory pathways. *p<0.05 and **p<0.01.</p

Immunohistochemical staining showing survival and cell type profiling of transplanted cells surrounding the injury epicenter approximately two months after injury.

<p>(A) Dual staining for human nuclear antigen (HNA, green) and myelin basic protein (MBP, red) verifies the survival of human OPCs in the rat tissue at the site of injection into the epicenter of the injury. Cells indicated by the arrow are shown at higher magnification in the insert. The majority of these cells are surrounded by intense MBP staining at the site of injection into the grey matter where MBP expression is normally low demonstrating the production of myelin in these areas. Nuclei of both the human and rat cells are identified by DAPI (blue). (B) Triple stains for HNA (blue), the astrocytic marker GFAP (green) and mature oligodendrocyte MBP (red) at these sights confirm that the majority of transplanted cells did not express the astrocyte marker GFAP. Instead astrocytic extensions (arrowhead) can be seen reaching into the area of injury from the surrounding white matter. Insert indicated by the arrow in B shows that human OPCs indicated by the blue HNA stain were primarily located at sites of intense MBP staining. (C) Staining for the pluripotent marker OCT4 (green) was not detected in the tissue.</p

Discovery-Based Science Education: Functional Genomic Dissection in Drosophila by Undergraduate Researchers

Discovery-Based Science Education: Functional Genomic Dissection in Drosophila by Undergraduate Researcher

Example of the Type of Data Available from the Online Database (http://www.bruinfly.ucla.edu)

<p>Example of the Type of Data Available from the Online Database (<a href="http://www.bruinfly.ucla.edu" target="_blank">http://www.bruinfly.ucla.edu</a>)</p

Representative Pictures from the Laboratory Section of the Course

<p>Representative Pictures from the Laboratory Section of the Course</p