Figure 3

Vinculin knock-down decreases the rate of wound-healing in MDCK cells. (A) Following ablation of a single cell in a monolayer, an F-actin purse-string formed along the wound edge with punctate vinculin accumulation at cell-cell contacts in MDCK wild-type (WT) cells. Vinculin knock-down (KD) cells displayed decreased vinculin and F-actin accumulation along the wound edge. The same exposure and laser power were used to acquire and generate the images. Scale bar 10 μm. (B) Time-lapse comparison of a wound-healing assay demonstrates vinculin accumulation at cell-cell contacts along the wound edge along with wound closure for vinculin-expressing (vinculin-GFP) cells and not in KD cells. Stably transfected KD cells are positive for a low level of GFP expression. Time in minutes. Scale bar 10 μm. (C) Comparison of the percentage of wound-closure after 1 hr and the initial velocity of wound closure between WT (n = 8), vinculin-GFP (n = 9), KD1 (n = 7), and KD2 (n = 11) cells. Error bars are standard error of the mean.