Enteric glial cell differentiation in culture

These images were taken to test the hypothesis that glial cells isolated from the myenteric ganglia of the enteric nervous system can differentiate into neurons. GFP+ enteric glial cells were isolated via FACS from the myenteric ganglia of Plp1::GFP/ Baf53b::Cre;R26tdT dual-reporter mice bred in our laboratory and placed in culture immediately after sorting. Immunoflouresence imaging of was performed on these cultured cells 1 day and 5 days after plating. We found no evidence of tdTomato+ cells one day after plating, but by 5 days tdTomao+ neurons emerged. This demonstrates the ability of enteric glial cells to generate neurons under the proper conditions.