Figure 5: Disruption of the SCMC affects the cytoplasmic F-actin meshwork in mouse zygotes.

(a) Zygotes were recovered from normal females 28–29 h after hCG, and cultured to different mitotic stages. After fixation and staining with FITC-labelled mouse anti-α-tubulin, phalloidin labelled with Alexa Fluor 546 (F-actin) and Hoechst 33342 (DNA), the embryos were imaged by confocal microscopy. Scale bar, 20 μm. (b) Zygotes were isolated from control as in a and Tle6^Null females 32–33 h after hCG, and cultured to mitotic stages. After fixation, the embryos of control and Tle6^Null embryos were stained as in a. A grey Indicator in colour LUTs was used to show the cytoplasmic F-actin. Scale bar, 20 μm. (c) Zygotes from normal mice and Tle6^Null mice were injected with UtrCH–eGFP mRNA and imaged with the UltraVIEW VoX confocal imaging system. Representative images were from control (Supplementary Movie 4) and Tle6^Null (Supplementary Movie 5) zygotes. Hoechest 33342 was used to stain DNA. Scale bar, 20 μm.