Fig. 1

a Alignment of miR-137 with the human SHANK2-3′UTR (NM_012309) wild type and mutated seed sequence. b Luciferase activity using the wild type (wt) and mutated (mut) 3′UTR of SHANK2 co-transfected with hsa-miR-137 mimic or control miRNA in the SH-SY5Y cells. The data was normalized to the empty psiCHECK™-2 vector, relative to the control miRNA. c Luciferase gene activity was measured 48 h after co-transfection of wild type and mutated SHANK2 3′UTR with hsa-miR-137 or control miRNA in primary mouse hippocampal cultures (DIV5). d Relative SHANK2 expression levels were measured by RT-qPCR. Primary mouse hippocampal neurons were transfected with either hsa-miR-137 or control miRNA. RNA was harvested 48 h posttransfection (n = 3 experiments). e Western blot of primary mouse hippocampal neurons 5 days posttransfection with hsa-miR-137 or control miRNA. Cropped pictures indicate Shank2 and βIII-tubulin expression and the full length blots are presented in Additional file 1: Figure S4A. The data was normalized to the control miRNA. Bar plots show mean ± SEM; ***P < 0.001, *P < 0.05 two-way ANOVA; b, c, and e (n = 5 experiments)