Human embryonic stem cells, differentiated to central nervous system tissue equivalent to the neocortical neuroepithelial cells are used to study human development and disease. Cells organize into characteristic flowerlike rosette structures which stain for nuclear markers of neural cell lineage and positional identity, apical polarity and structure.
Sequence 1: SOX1 (blue) marks all nuclei NCadherin (red) forms the centre rim or lumen of the rosette, and NESTIN (green) intermediate filament structural protein highly expressed by neuroepithelial cells;
Sequence 2: zooming out to 20x, PAX6 a pan neuroepithelial and dorsal neocortical nuclear transcription factor marks all nuclei (green), ARL13B (green) marks primary cilia located in the lumen of the rosettes, indicated again by N-cadherin (red), acetylated tubulin (purple) is expressed by all cells and highly enriched at the apical side of cells thus concentrated in rosettes;
Sequence 3: repeat Sequence 1
Soundtrack: Wicked Game, Chris Isaak