Fig. 3
From: Emergent patterns of collective cell migration under tubular confinement
Epithelial cytoskeleton and cell orientation in different TCSs. a Phalloidin-stained MDCK TCSs exhibiting basal actin stress fiber organization in different tube dimensions (25 μm (left), 100 μm (middle), and 250 μm (right)). LC is the representative image of the cells at leading cell front of the tube and FC is the representative image of the following cells. Cyan arrow points in the direction of migration. White arrowheads point to the actin microfilaments oriented along the tube long axis. Scale bars: 15 μm. b Order parameter (S a = < cos(2θ) > ) of the actin filament as a function of microtube dimension, where θ is the angle of actin filament with respect to the tube length. 1 signifies parallel alignment and 0 signifies randomness in organization (n = 10 from five independent experiments). t-test has been performed between each microtube diameter and 25 μm, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, NS non-significant. Data are presented as mean ± s.e.m. c Polar graph plotting the histogram of the cell orientation distribution inside microtubes (25, 100, and 250 μm (from left to right)). 90° means oriented along the microtube long axis, and 0o and 180o mean the cell is oriented perpendicular to the long axis
