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Fig. 9 Overexpression of cav1 in motor neuron cells can promote neurite outgrowth and expression of functional neuron markers. NSC34 motor neuron cells were employed to examine the effect of Cav1 on neurite outgrowth. NSC34 cells were grouped into three treatments: non-transfected (control group), transfected with pCS2-vector (pCS2-vector only group) and transfected with pCS containing cav1 cDNA (pCS2-cav1 group). (a) Neurite outgrowth of motoneurons developed from 48 h-cultured NSC34 cells overexpressing cav1 (pCS2-cav1 group) was observed under microscopy. (b) The size distribution of neurite length developed from NSC34 cells transfected with materials as indicated. Cell number with various lengths of neurites after culturing for 48 h was determined (50 cells per experimental condition). (c) Western blot analysis using antibody against neuron markers as indicated. Three independent experiments were performed. The α-tubulin served internal loading control. (d) Relative expression level of each marker was quantified. Statistical analysis used t-test with different significance levels at ***p < 0.001, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.01; error bars indicate s.e.m. n.s.: not significant.