Figure 3.

FACS quantification of cell death phenotype. Quantification of cell death by FACS showed that the expression of (R42P)Cx31-EGFP, (C86S)Cx31-EGFP and (G12D)Cx31-EGFP leads to decreased cell viability, unlike (WT)Cx31-EGFP or (66delD)Cx31-EGFP. There is less death of SH-SY5Y cells compared with HeLa and NTERT, suggesting cell-type processing of the mutants. Increasing the calcium concentration to 3.6 mM decreased the amount of cell death in some of the samples, however complete rescue was not observed, suggesting that aberrant hemichannels are not the predominant mechanism of cell death for these mutants. Error bars represent SEM.