Fig. 2. RT-PCR revealed the presence of nestin transcripts in undifferentiated ES cells as well as murine blastocysts. The upper panel shows nestin transcripts from D3 undifferentiated ES cells (lane 2), transgenic h-Nestin-EGFP ES cells (n-ES cells; lane 5) grown on feeders and from D3 undifferentiated ES cells grown without feeders (lane 8). The lower panel shows nestin transcripts in the transgenic ES cells without feeders (lane 2) and in the murine blastocysts (lanes 8, 14). The length of the nestin PCR product corresponds to the expected size of 478 bp. The corresponding products for housekeeping HPRT (upper panel, lanes 4,7,10; lower panel, lanes 5,10) and ß-actin (lower panel, lanes 6,12) are shown as controls. Lanes 3,6,9 (upper panel) and 3,4,7,9,11,13 (lower panel) represent the respective negative controls where the reverse transcriptase was omitted from the reaction.