The responsiveness of DRG to innate neurotrophins for phenotype differentiation during early development was recapitulated in our long-term cultured aDRG NSCs in response to exogenous neurotrophins. The proportion of TrpV1 immunostaining in aDRG NSCs was significantly increased (p < 0.05) at the presence of NGF (Fig. 5A–C). In contrast, the percentage of TrpV1 immuno-staining in the BDNF-treated cultures was not significantly different compared to the controls (not shown). BDNF, however, increased the percentage of NeuN-positive cells (p < 0.0001) (Fig. 5D–F).
