Fig. 7. Attenuation of ABCG2 promotes differentiation of late retinal progenitors. (A-M) There was a significant increase and decrease in the proportion of Map2⁺ (A-D,M)/GFAP⁺ (E-H,M) and Nestin⁺ (I-L,M) cells, respectively, in pSuper-ABCG2_siRNA retrovirus, compared with controls. RT-PCR analysis revealed an increase and decrease in levels of transcripts corresponding to Map2/GFAP and Nestin, respectively, in pSuper-ABCG2_siRNA retrovirus-transduced neurospheres, compared with controls, corroborating the immunocytochemical analysis (N). RT-PCR analysis revealed an increase in the expression of transcripts corresponding to specific retinal cell markers, rhodopsin kinase (RK, rods), mGluR6 (bipolar cells), Syntaxin1 (amacrine cells) and glutamine synthetase (GS, Müller cells) in pSuper-ABCG2_siRNA retrovirus-transduced neurospheres as compared to controls, demonstrating the effects of ABCG2 on retinal cell specific differentiation (O). Data are expressed as the mean ± s.e.m. of triplicate cultures of two different experiments. Magnification, 200x.