Figure 3.

CD44 clustering induced by antibody cross-linking is significantly impaired in cholesterol-depleted cells. Sparsely seeded EpH4 cells (see Fig. 2) were pretreated with M-β-CD and processed as described in the legend to Fig. 2, using only costaining with anti-annexin II antibody. In M-β-CD–treated cells, antibody cross-linking of CD44 produced much smaller clusters (A) than in untreated cells, (compare with Fig. 2 D) and annexin II (B, merge in C) was no longer recruited to these small patches. Bar, 10 μm.