MAPT and Alzheimer disease: Next, to further confirm whether hDPSCs could modulate AD pathology in an in vitro AD model, we transfected SH-SY5Y cells 48 h with plasmids expressing the same mutant forms of APP and Tau as those in 3xTg-AD mice to simulate the two major pathological characteristics within AD, followed by co-culturing with hDPSCs for 24 h (Figure 3A).