Fig. 4

Intranasal delivery of iPSC-derived CNSC-SE reduced expression of AD-related proteins in AD mouse brain. a Expression of protein markers involved in AD (APP, pTau, and BACE), inflammatory cytokines (TNFα and IL-1β), and neuroinflammatory markers (Iba-1 and GFAP) in the mouse whole brain. b Quantification of the proteins, normalized to β-actin. c Brain sections were stained using immunohistochemistry with Aβ monoclonal antibody in the following groups: (1) wild-type mice as controls (WT group); (2) 5×FAD AD model (AD group); (3) CNSC-SE-treated 5×FAD mice; and (4) MSC-treated 5×FAD mice. d Amyloid plaques were counted in the whole brain and in the subiculum using Image J (measured three times with the same place). Scale bars, 200 μm. Data are presented as mean ± SEM. *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001 vs. CNSC-SE (T-rest), ^#P < 0.05, ^##P < 0.01, ^##P < 0.001 vs. WT (One-way ANOVA), ^@P < 0.05, ^@@P < 0.01, ^@@@P < 0.001 vs. AD (One-way ANOVA). MSC, mesenchymal stem cells; CNSC-SE, cortical neural stem cell secretome; GFAP, glial fibrillary acidic protein; TNFα, tumor necrosis factor α