Fig. 8: RNA methylation regulates the balance between NSC self-renewal and differentiation.

a Schematic representation of the transduction of NSCs with lentiviruses (LV) and the construct used for Mettl3 loss of function experiments. Transduced NSCs were subsequently cultured either under proliferation or differentiation conditions. b Immunodetection and quantification of DCX⁺ cells (red) in cultures previously infected with control or shMettl3 lentiviruses 2 days after plating the cells, both in proliferation and differentiation conditions (2DIV; p-value(proliferation) = 0.0011, p-value(differentiation) = 0.033, n = 3 biologically independent samples, by two-tailed Student’s t-test). c Immunodetection and quantification of βIII-tubulin⁺ cells (white) in cultures previously infected with control or shMettl3 lentiviruses 2 days after plating the cells, both in proliferation and differentiation conditions (2DIV; p-value(proliferation) = 0.0005, p-value(differentiation) = 0.061, n = 3 biologically independent samples, by two-tailed Student’s t-test). d Immunodetection and quantification of GFAP⁺ (red; p-value = 0.005, n = 3 biologically independent samples, by two-tailed Student’s t-test), βIII-tubulin⁺ (white; p-value = 0.017, n = 3 biologically independent samples, by two-tailed Student’s t-test) and O4⁺ (yellow; p-value = 0.008, n = 3 biologically independent samples, by two-tailed Student’s t-test) cells in differentiating cultures previously infected with control or shMettl3 lentiviruses 7 days after the induction of differentiation (7DIV). e Proposed model: Intron detention regulates the translational availability of multiple mRNAs associated with NSC self-renewal, proliferation and differentiation, contributing to the fine tuning of neural differentiation. Arrowheads point to positive cells. Scale bars represent 25 µm. Data are presented as mean values ± SEM. ns not significant; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.