Figure 1.

The formation of characteristic membrane protrusions is promoted in RasV12-transformed cells and the neighboring normal cells

(A) EM images showing the alone cultures or mix culture of normal and RasV12-transformed MDCK cells. Cells were fixed at 16 hr after the induction of RasV12 and sectioned along the X-Y axis. The areas in the white boxes are shown as insets at higher magnification, demonstrating intercellular regions. Scale bars, 5 μm; 1 μm (insets).

(B) Tracings of cell membranes at cell-cell contacts in alone or mix culture. Scale bar, 0.5 μm.

(C) An example for analyses of waviness of cell membranes and frequency of protrusions. A protrusive plasma membrane of which length is longer than the width is defined as “protrusion”.

(D and E) Waviness of cell membranes (D) or frequency of protrusions (E) at each cell-cell contact in alone or mix culture. As for MDCK-RasV12 boundary, the data on the underlined side is shown. Data are median ±SD. ∗p < 0.05; ∗∗p < 0.01 (unpaired two-tailed Student's t-tests).