Fig. 4

Immunostaining of N-cadherin, connexin 43 and connexin 45 in cultured FS1 and TCam-2 cells. (A) In FS1 cells, the N-cadherin representing signal is particularly localized within the cell membranes (arrows) and cell extensions (black arrowheads), but it can also be detected in the cytoplasm at a few sites (white arrowheads). (B) Similarly, in TCam-2 cells, N-cadherin can be detected at the cell membranes (arrows) and to a lesser extent in the cytoplasm (white arrowheads). (C) The labelling of connexin 43 in FS1 cells is mainly membrane-bound (arrows), but a very weak signal in the cytoplasm can be observed at only a few areas (white arrowheads). (D) TCam-2 cells show just a very weak reaction for connexin 43 overall, which can only be found in some cells with both membrane (arrows) and cytoplasm (white arrowheads) being positive. (E, F) Both within FS1 cells (E) and TCam-2 cells (F), the signal of the immune reaction for connexin 45 is present in the cytoplasm in a dot-like pattern (white arrowheads). The negative controls, treated without any primary antibody but with the secondary antibodies anti-mouse (G, I) or anti-rabbit (H, J), show no brown labelling for either FS1 cells (G, H) or TCam-2 cells (I, J). Scale bars = 50 μm (A–F), 100 μm (G–J).