Figure 1.

Increased lamin B1 levels in cancer accelerate cell migration. (a) Cancer is associated with higher expression levels of lamin B1. Relative RNA levels of lamin A (LMNA gene) and lamin B1 (LMNB1 gene) in the indicated human organs in normal tissues (NT), normal tissues around a tumor (STN), primary tumors (PT), and metastases (M) according to the available data in GTEx and TCGA databases. Patients no.: breast, NT-179, STN-113, PT-1092; kidney, NT-27, STN-140, PT-884; liver, NT-110, STN-50, PT-369; prostate, NT-100, STN-52, PT-495; skin, NT-556, PT-102, M-366; Statistical significance was evaluated by the Student’s t-test, ** p < 0.01 (b) Relative migration rate of B16–F10 cells over-expressing GFP-fused histone H1E, lamin A and lamin B1 in the wound healing assay. Representative GFP and phase-contrast micrographs of the same fields at time 0 (immediately after the scratch) and 12 h later. Scale bar: 50 μm. (c) The area covered by the cells following 12 h of incubation was measured and set as 1 for the over-expressing H1E-GFP cells. The graphs show the mean area covered in five independent experiments ± s.e. Statistical significance was evaluated by the Student’s t-test, * p < 0.05. (d) Over-expression of lamin B1 accelerates the migration rate of B16–F10 in the Transwell assay. The migration rate of B16–F10 cells over-expressing H1E-GFP, lamin B1-GFP, and lamin A-GFP was measured by the Transwell assay. Four hours after plating the cells on top of the filters the cells were fixed, permeabilized, and stained with Hoechst reagent. In each experiment the fraction of the transfected cells migrated to the lower side of the filter was calculated and normalized to the migration rate of H1E-GFP over-expressing cells. The graphs show the mean relative migration rate in three independent experiments ± s.e. Statistical significance was evaluated by the Student’s t-test, * p < 0.05.