Skip to main content
. 2011 Jan 15;138(2):359–370. doi: 10.1242/dev.052324

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2.

daCamkII promotes prehypertrophy in the proliferative zone. Sections of chick growth plate cartilage infected with RCAS(A)-daCamkII or RCAS(A)-HA-daCamkII were analyzed by immunofluorescence (HA-daCamkII and pCamkII) and/or FISH (daCamkII and Ihh). Where indicated, DNA and actin were visualized using DAPI and phalloidin, respectively. (A) pCamkII (red) is present at high levels in the nucleus of proliferative chondrocytes that express HA-daCamkII (green), but not in neighboring wild-type cells (non-green), suggesting that daCamkII promotes CamkII activity in the growth plate (n=4). White arrows denote examples of double-positive cells. Note the absence of overlap within the cells for the HA and the nuclear pCamkII signals. (B) Expression of either HA-daCamkII (green, top panels) (n=7) or daCamkII (green, lower panels) (n=10) induces ectopic Ihh transcription (red) in proliferative chondrocytes. White brackets denote Ihh expression in the PHZ. White arrows indicate examples of double-positive cells, whereas open arrows highlight CamkII-positive, Ihh-negative cells. Ihh is induced with different efficiencies in the resting (not shown), the upper proliferative and the lower proliferative chondrocytes (indicated by solid bars) infected with the two daCamkII constructs, respectively. (C) Quantification of the data described in Fig. 2B. The number above each column is the percentage of infected cells that express Ihh. For each column, the number of infected cells examined was as follows: for HA-daCamkII infected cartilage, resting (n=570), upper proliferative (n=342) and lower proliferative (n=395) chondrocytes; for daCamkII infected cartilage, resting (n=1519), upper proliferative (n=495) and lower proliferative (n=1062). (D) At both high (n=3) and low (n=10) levels of infection, all HA-daCamkII-expressing cells (green, solid arrow) show hypertrophic morphology and low levels of cortical actin, whereas neighboring uninfected chondrocytes (non-green cells, open arrow) display the wild-type proliferative chondrocyte phenotype. Scale bars: 50 μm in A and D; 100 μm in B.