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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2009 Jun 27.
Published in final edited form as: Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2008 Apr 25;371(2):333–338. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2008.04.084

Figure 4. Overexpression of BCCIPα induces formation of neurite-like extensions.

Figure 4

DU145 cells on chamber slides were transfected with HA-BCCIPα or HA-CLASP1, incubated overnight, fixed and stained with anti-HA and a fluorescent-tagged secondary antibody. (a) CLASP-1 transfected cells displayed a normal polygonal morphology, while a sub-population of cells overexpressing BCCIPα were rounded with elaborate branching extensions, suggestive of neuroendocrine (NE) differentiation. Two patterns were commonly seen, cells with a single long extension (upper panel) and cells with multiple convoluted processes (lower panel). Size bar represents 25µ. (b) To quantitate cells putatively undergoing NE differentiation, the number of rounded cells with extensions in a given microscope field was counted and expressed as a percent of the total number of transfected cells visible in the field. Graph depicts the average and standard deviation from 10 random microscope fields (approximately 200 cells for each transfection). Ten percent of BCCIPα expressing cells developed this phenotype, while less than 1% of these cells were observed in the control. The difference was statistically significant as determined by Student’s t-test (p<0.001).