FIGURE 2:

Stress deprivation alters tendon cell morphology and destabilizes F-actin. (A, B) Maximum-intensity projection images of tendons demonstrating an increase in G/F-actin staining after 1 d of culture taken with either a 20× (panel A) or a 63× (panel B) objective. In panel B, grayscale images represent individual channels for G- and F-actin. (C) Single optical slice of boxed region in panel B demonstrates that cell morphology and F-actin are altered by stress deprivation. (D) Dot plots of DNaseI:phalloidin to demonstrate an increase in G/F-actin. Mean ± SEM is indicated on dot plots. Average DNaseI:phallodin for controls was set to 1.0, and 1 d stress-deprived values were scaled accordingly. Nuclei staining intensity using Hoechst was calculated to demonstrate that there were no significant differences in staining between control and stress-deprived tendons. Average fluorescence intensities for controls were set to 100%, and stress-deprived tendon intensities are expressed as relative percentage to controls. ***, p < 0.001.