Figure 6.

Downregulation of PrP^C upregulates vimentin and collagen 1A. (a) PrP^C was silenced in human TM cells and lysates were processed as above. Probing for vimentin and collagen 1A shows significant upregulation in the absence of PrP^C relative to controls (lanes 1 & 2). (b) Quantification of protein expression by densitometry after normalization with β-actin shows 1.9-fold upregulation of vimentin and 2.2-fold upregulation of collagen 1A in the absence of PrP^C. Values are mean ± SEM of the indicated n. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01. Full-length blots (Supplementary Fig. S2). (c & d) Immunoreaction of fixed sections from the anterior segment of PrP^+/+ and PrP^−/− mice for vimentin and collagen 1A shows stronger reaction in the TM of PrP^−/− relative to PrP^+/+ samples (panel 1 vs. 2). No reaction was detected when serial sections were reacted with mouse or rabbit IgG followed by Alexa 546-conjugated secondary antibody (panels 5 & 6). Scale bar: 25 µm.