Fig. 5. Knockdown of endogenous stathmin reduces dendritic growth of PCs. (A,B) Efficacy of stathmin knockdown by siRNAs in rat PC12 cells. (A) Immunoblotting of whole cell lysate from PC12 cells transfected with the indicated siRNAs. Alpha-tubulin provided a loading control. (B) Knockdown efficacy was quantified from three independent experiments. (C) Typical images of PCs in primary culture transfected with control siRNA and stathmin siRNA-2. Alexa Fluor-546-conjugated siRNAs were used in this experiment. Arrowheads indicate soma of transfectant. Bars, 50 µm. (D) Quantification of total dendritic branch length of PCs transfected with control siRNA or stathmin siRNA-2. Error bars indicate mean ± s.e.m. A P value from Student's t-test is shown in the graph.