Figure 3.

Osteocyte primary cilia expression was reduced in co‐culture with breast and prostate cancer cells. A) Schematic of the osteocyte primary cilium demonstrating how IFT88 binds to motor proteins to construct the axoneme. Imaging performed using confocal microscopy (nuclei = blue, DAPI; F‐actin cytoskeleton = red, phalloidin; axoneme = green, acetylated α‐tubulin) and super‐resolution Structured Illumination Microscopy (SR‐SIM) (centrosome/basal body = magenta, pericentrin; axoneme = green, acetylated α‐tubulin). B,C) Primary cilia expression in osteocytes (control) and the effect of co‐culture with each breast and prostate cancer cell line (Co‐C). Quantification of B) cilia incidence and C) cilia length. Bar charts represent mean ± standard deviation for n = 9 technical replicates. Statistically significant differences indicated by horizontal lines based on one‐way ANOVA with Bonferroni post‐hoc test (light gray p < 0.05, dark gray p < 0.01, black p < 0.001). Data points for each replicate indicate the incidence based >200 cells and median values for cilia length based on 100 cilia.