Fig. 1.

Trophoblasts form actin rich invasive protrusions which have the ability to degrade the extracellular matrix. (A) Trophoblast cell stained with AlexaFluor-488-Phalloidin show actin rich structures on the ventral surface of the cell when plated on plastic. When plated on fluorescently labelled gelatin (0.2%, w/v), degradation of the extracellular matrix is observed. (B) Trophoblast cell displaying similar actin rich structures as in A which are also cortactin rich (blue), similar to the composition of invadosomes. Cells were also plated on fluorescently labelled gelatin and the overlaid image of actin (green) and gelatin (red) shows that these structures were able to invade and degrade the fluorescent matrix. (C) Trail of degradation by a migrating trophoblast cell through a fluorescently labelled matrix. Arrow heads indicate a single actin rich protrusion. All scale bars equal to 10 μm. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of the article.)