Fig. 11

Effects of Tat expression and exosomal miR-132 induction on synaptic formation. Primary mouse astrocytes were isolated from WT (a) and iTat (b), cultured in the presence (+Dox) or absence of (−Dox) of 5 mg/ml for 48 h, transfected with miR-132i (+miR-132i) or a control miRNA (−miR-132i) and continued to culture for 48 h. The cell culture supernatants were collected and used to isolate exosomes. Primary mouse cortical neurons were plated and cultured on poly-lysine-coated coverslips in a 24-well plate at the density of 85,000 cells/well and continued to culture in the presence of the exosomes isolated above for 48 h. The cells were then harvested for immunofluorescence staining for synaptophysin (SYP) for presynapse formation and for PSD-95 for postsynapse formation and counterstained with DAPI (a, b). The images were representative of three independent experiments