Three types of ependymal cells all expressed Foxj1, the master regulator of motile cilia (Yu et al., 2008). The first, EPEN, was common along the rostrocaudal axis. The second, EPMB, was observed in the dorsal midbrain and—to a lesser extent—the hypothalamus. They expressed high levels of Gfap and the Efnb3 gene encoding Ephrin B3 but only low levels of Foxj1. They also expressed many markers of tanycytes of the third ventricle, including Nes, Vim, Rax, and Gpr50 (Miranda-Angulo et al., 2014), but their location in the dorsal midbrain suggests that they instead represented a tanycyte of the circumventricular organs (Kettenmann and Ransom, 2013). The third, EPSC, was specific to the spinal cord and was distinguished by the expression of immediate-early genes such as Fos, Junb, and Egr1.
