Figure 3. Large centrosomes, indicative of centriole amplification events, are observed in vHMECs.

Immunofluorescence protocols demonstrated the presence of large centrosomes. A. The micrograph shows two mononucleated cells after pericentrin and β-tubulin staining. The cell on the right side displays—pointed arrow—a large pericentrin signal, bigger than twice the pericentrin signal of the upper left side cell. The bar represents 5 μm. B. The use of antibodies against pericentrin and centrin in vHMEC-hTERT determined that pericentrin area size became greater with an increasing number of centrioles. C. Pericentrin and centrin immunofluorescence, of three cells showing increasing numbers of centrin dots in green: 2 centrin signals (left side), 4 centrin signals (middle), and > 10 centrin signals (right side), and pericentrin area size in red. At the bottom of each image, insets showing individual centrin, pericentrin and merged respective images. Bar represents 5 μm.