Figure 1.
Immunohistochemical analysis of p120ctn, E-cadherin and vimentin localization in NSCLC.
(A) E-cadherin and p120ctn were membrane positive, and vimentin was negative in normal bronchial epithelial cells. (B) E-cadherin was membrane positive, and vimentin was negative in p120ctn membrane-positive lung cancer cells. (C) E-cadherin was negative, and vimentin was positive in p120ctn cytoplasmic-positive lung cancer cells.
Table 1.
Correlation between E-cadherin, vimentin and lymph node metastasis and p120ctn.
Figure 2.
Expression and localization of p120ctn and E-cadherin in H460, SPC, H1299 and LK2 cells.
(A) Western blot analyses showed expression of p120ctn and E-cadherin in nine lung cancer cell lines and HBE. (B) By immunofluorescence analysis, the expression of E-cadherin and p120ctn were observed restricted to the cell membrane at cell-cell adherens junctions in H460 and H1299 cells, whereas they both were confined to the cytoplasm in SPC and LK2 cells.
Figure 3.
p120ctn isoform 1A plays a different role in regulating EMT in H460 and SPC cells.
(A) Ablation of p120ctn isoform 1A decreased E-cadherin expression and increased N-cadherin, snail and vimentin expression in H460 cells. (B) SPC cells were treated as in (A) and the opposite results were obtained. (C) Ablation of p120ctn isoform 1A enhanced the invasiveness of H460 cells (**P<0.01). (D) Ablation of p120ctn isoform 1A decreased the invasiveness of SPC cells (**P<0.01).
Figure 4.
p120ctn isoform 3A maintains the role of inhibitiing EMT independently of E-cadherin localization.
(A, B) Both H1299 (E-cadherin membrane localization) and LK2 cells (E-cadherin cytoplasmic localization) transiently transfected with the p120ctn isoform 3A plasmid showed increased E-cadherin expression and decreased N-cadherin, vimentin and snail expression. (C, D) Transient transfection of p120ctn isoform 3A plasmids into H1299 and LK2 cells resulted in decreased cell invasiveness (**P<0.01). (E) E-cadherin remained localized on the membrane in H1299 cells and in the cytoplasm of LK2 cells after transfection of the p120ctn isoform 3A plasmid.