Figure - PMC

Skip to main content

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

View full-text article in PMC

. 2016 Jul 1;66(10):1748–1760. doi: 10.1136/gutjnl-2015-310847

Search in PMC
Search in PubMed
View in NLM Catalog
Add to search

Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

PMC Copyright notice

Efficient deletion of Itga6 in α6^ΔIEC mice results in compromised hemidesmosomes and epithelial fragility. (A) Strategy to generate an intestinal epithelium-specific Itga6 knockout (for details, see online supplementary figure S1A). The Itga6 floxed allele (α6^fl) was obtained after insertion of two loxP cassettes (green triangles) at the Itga6 3′ end including the TM and the cytoplasmic A and B (α6A; α6B) exons. Crossing of the α6^fl/fl mice with the transgenic Villin-Cre line results in a truncated Itga6 copy, denoted α6^ΔIEC. (B) Morphology of the colorectal region in 15-week-old WT and α6^ΔIEC mice. White stars indicate stools. Scale bars, 5 mm. (C–H) Immunodetection of hemidesmosome markers in the colon of E16.5 embryos (C and D) and in intestinal segments of mice aged 9–16 weeks (E–H); (E) rectum; (F and G) jejunum; (H) colon; 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) marks nuclei (blue). (C and E) α6-integrin chain and (D) β4-integrin chain (green) with the mucin Muc2 (red). The remaining signal in (C and E) corresponds to α6 integrin in blood vessels, confirming the specificity of the deletion in the epithelium. (F) Plectin and (G) K8/K18 intermediate filaments (green), with collagen IV (red). (H) Laminin-γ2 chain (green). White arrows, epithelium/lamina propria interface; yellow arrowheads, hemidesmosome patches; stars, areas of epithelial detachment in mutants. Scale bars, 50 µm. (I) Histological analysis of the colon from 3-week-old mice; bracket, detached cells from the surface epithelium. Scale bar, 100 µm. (J) Scattered dot plots showing the protein concentration of epithelial cell lysates obtained from small intestinal tissue of pups aged 2 (P2) and 14 (P14) days submitted to a detachment assay; error bars, SD; *p<0.05, **p<0.01. (K) Scattered dot plots showing the plasma concentration of FITC-dextran (FD4) as a measurement of intestinal permeability in 6-week-old animals fed with FD4; error bars, SD; ****p<10⁻⁴. A, anus; C, colon; e, epithelium; lp, lamina propria; lu, lumen; m, muscle layer; mes, mesenchyme; P, prolapse; R, rectum; TM, transmembrane; w, weeks; WT, wildtype.