Fig. 4

Son knockdown causes a reduction in spine density on cortical pyramidal neurons. a Representative images showing pyramidal neurons in layers II/III at P60. Vectors expressing shRNA#1 with or without those expressing wild-type (hSONr) or mutant hSON (hSONm1 or hSONm2), as described in the boxes above each image, were transfected into neural progenitors at E14.5. Parental pLLC vectors were used as controls. Coronal cortical sections were prepared at P60 and stained for GFP (green). The right panels are high magnification views of the boxed areas in the left panels. b Quantification of the spine density. The number of spines on each dendrite at between 30 μm and 80 μm from the soma was counted. The spine density is represented as the number of spines per dendrite length of 10 μm. Error bars represent the SEM. One-way ANOVA followed by Dunnett’s test was used for each statistical analysis. *p < 0.05, n ≥ 17 neurons. The original data are available in Additional file 1 [Table S3]