Fig. 3. [en] Knock-down of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and downstream target genes inhibits growth factor-stimulated branching in 786-0 renal cell carcinoma (RCC) cells.
From top to bottom, phase contrast photomicrographs (x40 objective) show branching morphogenesis by 786-0 cells transfected with shRNA expression constructs for control (scrambled sequence), EGFR, Akt-1, and MEK-1, stimulated by hepatocyte growth factor (left) or transforming growth factor α (right). Cells were cultured in Matrigel and branching was ranked on a scale from + to ++++, least to most, as indicated at the bottom right of each panel.