FIG 4 .

Effects of N-cadherin siRNA on C. albicans recruitment of endothelial cell N-cadherin and SEPT7. Endothelial cells were transfected with either control or N-cadherin siRNA and then infected with wild-type C. albicans for 90 min. (A, B) The cells were fixed and then stained for N-cadherin and SEPT7. (A) The number of organisms in 15 high-power fields that were surrounded by N-cadherin alone, SEPT7 alone, or N-cadherin plus SEPT7. Results are the means ± SD from three experiments, each performed in triplicate. (B) Confocal microscopic images of N-cadherin (a, e) and SEPT7 (b, f) accumulating around the same organism. The merged images are shown in panels c and g, and images of the corresponding microscopic fields viewed by differential interference contrast are shown in panels d and h. Arrows indicate the N-cadherin and SEPT7 that accumulated around the hyphae. Scale bar = 5 µm. (C) Representative immunoblot showing the effects of N-cadherin knockdown on the amount of endothelial cell N-cadherin and SEPT7 that bound to C. albicans hyphae. (D) Densitometric analysis of 3 independent SEPT7 immunoblots. Results are means ± SD. *, P ≤ 0.05 compared to cells transfected with control siRNA.