Figure 3
PFOS-induced disruption of the actin-based cytoskeleton in human Sertoli cells is mediated via changes in the spatial expression of actin binding/regulatory proteins. (A) The steady-state protein levels of actin regulatory proteins Eps8 (an actin barbed end capping and bundling protein known to maintain actin microfilaments into a bundled network to support ES function), and Apr3 (a branched actin polymerization protein known to convert bundled actin filaments into a branched/unbundled network to facilitate ES disruption), as well as F-actin regulatory signaling protein FAK in particular p-FAK-Tyr407 in human Sertoli cells following PFOS treatment were assessed by immunoblottings. ß-Actin served as a protein loading control. These immunoblotting data were summarized in the histograms shown on the lower panel. Each bar is a mean ± SD of n = 3 independent experiments. Protein level in vehicle controls cells was arbitrarily set at 1 against which statistical comparison was performed. **P < 0.01 by Student’s t test compared between PFOS-treated and vehicle control (DMSO) cells. Uncropped images of immunoblots can be found in Figure S2. (B) Dual-labeled immunofluorescence analysis of F-actin (red fluorescence) vs. actin regulatory protein Arp3 (green fluorescence) or Eps8 (green fluorescence). Cell nuclei were visualized by DAPI. Scale bar, 40 μm, which applies to all other micrographs.
