FIGURE 7.

Cx26 or Cx43 do not act to form melanoma/keratinocyte heterocellular gap junctions. REKs were co-cultured with WT BL6 cells or cells engineered to express Cx26-GFP or Cx43-GFP. Heterocellular cultures were double immunolabeled for Cx26 or Cx43 and E-cadherin or immunolabeled for E-cadherin only. In all cases, control or connexin-expressing BL6 cells did not exhibit clear evidence of Cx43 or Cx26 gap junction plaques at interfaces with E-cadherin-positive REKs even when examined under high magnification (boxed insets). Asterisks highlight some BL6 cells. Inset images were magnified 2×. Bars, 20 μm.