FIGURE 4.

Amino-terminal auto-processing of HtrA^Hp influences the disruption of cell-to-cell junctions during infection with C. jejuni. Polarized Caco-2 cells were (A) left uninfected (mock) or infected for 24 h with (B) C. jejuni 81–176 wt, (C) ΔhtrA or (D) ΔhtrA/htrA^Hp wt. (E–H) Infection with C. jejuni 81–176ΔhtrA expressing point and deletion mutants of HtrA^Hp amino-terminal auto-processing sites (compare Supplementary Figure 1A). The cells were subjected to immunofluorescence staining detecting E-cadherin (green) and C. jejuni (red). Arrowheads mark cells showing significantly downregulated (blue) or locally disrupted (yellow) E-cadherin signals. The nuclei were stained with DAPI (blue). The scale bar corresponds to 10 μm.