Extended Data Fig. 3: Cell-cell junctions and focal adhesions are necessary for actin alignment.
From: Interplay of actin nematodynamics and anisotropic tension controls endothelial mechanics
A Schematics of the cell-cell junctions and associated actin fibers, showing a linear AJ (left) and a focal AJ (right), observed in monolayers under ΔP≈150Pa. B Endothelium stained for VE-cadherin (pink) and phalloidin (white) after 7h of stretch at ΔP≈650Pa, with long transcellular actin cables manually traced (white and green triangles). C Endothelium stained for nuclei, vinculin (magenta), VE-cadherin (yellow) and phalloidin (cyan) after 7h of stretch at ΔP≈650Pa, showing a line of clustered focal adhesion (white arrowhead) with actin fibers anchoring (cyan), away from cell-cell junctions (yellow). Scale bar 20 μm. D EDTA-treated endothelium stained for nuclei (cyan) and phalloidin (white) after 7h of stretch at ΔP≈650Pa, with cell border outlined (magenta, bottom), showing elongated cells whose orientation follows stress fiber orientation. E Probability distribution of the nuclei long axis orientation at 7 h (i) and 24 h (ii) for control (orange, n=7 (7h); red, n=5 (24h)) and EDTA-treated in control medium (blue, n=5 (7h), n=6 (24h)) or DMEM (teal, n=3 (7h)) endothelia. F Nematic order parameter q as a function of time for EGM2-cultured (light orange, n=5 (7h); red, n=3 (24h)) and DMEM-cultured monolayers (dark orange, n=3 (7h); purple, n=2 (24h)), same data as in Fig. 2civ.
