Figure 5. Functional changes in cells induced by knockdown of proteins involved in mitochondrial dynamics.
(A and B) The mitochondrial fusion by Drp1 knockdown leads to an increase of cell length and F-actin. APRE-19 cells were transfected with Drp1 siRNA, Mfn1 siRNA, or control siRNA. Forty-eight hours after transfection, cells were treated withTGF-β for 48 h. Cells were fixed and stained with phalloidin-TRITC (A). Cell length was analyzed using confocal images (B). Data are the mean ± SD of three experiments, each with 100 cells per condition. (C) The mitochondrial fusion by Drp1 knockdown promotes cell migration induced by TGF-β. Cells were transfected with the indicated siRNAs. Forty-eight hours after transfection, cells were treated with TGF-β for the indicated periods of time. The migrated cells were counted. Data shown represent the average of three independent experiments. *P<0.05; ***P<0.0005.