Figure 3: β-Catenin/BCL9L/TCF4 signalling is required for FK-induced fusion of BeWo cells.
From: Identification of a link between Wnt/β-catenin signalling and the cell fusion pathway
(a) The effect of BCL9L, β-catenin or TCF4 knockdown on the extent of cell-cell fusion of BeWo cells after 48 h of FK treatment was analysed by immunostaining with anti-plakoglobin antibody (green) and TO-PRO-3 nuclear staining (red). Staining of plakoglobin is shown separately in top panels to clarify the inter-cellular boundaries. White arrows, syncytium with >4 nuclei; yellow arrow, syncytium with >10 nuclei. Scale bars, 50 μm. (b) Distribution of syncytia as a function of the number (n) of nuclei per cell or syncytium. The number of nuclei per syncytium were quantified and plotted. In the right panel, y-axis is in a logarithmic scale. (c) Cell-cell fusion events were quantified and shown as fusion indexes. The extent of cell fusion was calculated as a fusion index of [(N−S)/T]×100%, where (N−S) equals the number of fusion events, N is the number of nuclei in the syncytia, S is the number of syncytia and T is the total number of nuclei counted. Open bars, control, closed bars FK. Values are shown as mean±s.e.m. *P<0.05; **P<0.01. N=3. Statistical tests were performed using unpaired two-tailed Student's t-test.
