Fig. 3.

Effects of different magnitudes of cyclic stretch on epithelial barrier integrity in epithelial cells transfected with scrambled (Sc) and p120 small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). MLE-12 epithelial cells were transfected with scrambled and p120 siRNAs. At 48 h posttransfection, cells were exposed to cyclic stretch (8 and 20%) for 2 h. A: p120 was downregulated with specific p120 siRNA as determined by Western blot. Actin was used as a loading control. B: after fixation and permeabilization, cells were incubated with anti-p120-catenin primary antibody followed by Alexa-conjugated secondary antibody (green). The F-actin and nucleus were stained with Alexa 546 phalloidin (red) and DAPI (blue), respectively. Scale bars = 5 μm. C: quantitative analysis of cyclic stretch-induced gap formation in alveolar epithelial cells exposed to low- and high-magnitude of cyclic stretch was performed as described in materials and methods. Shown are representative results of 5 independent experiments. *P < 0.05 vs. control group (static). †P < 0.05 vs. respective Sc siRNA groups.