Fig. 8. Effect of silencing Pfn1 on early cord morphogenesis of HUVECs. (A) Control HUVECs (denoted by `C') form prominent cord-like structures on polymerized matrigel by 8 hours after plating. Cord formation is significantly inhibited in the case of Pfn1-deficient cells (denoted by `P'). Bar, 100 µm. (B) A bar graph shows significantly higher number of nodes involving at least three branches in the control cells compared with the same in Pfn1-deficient cells (the graph summarizes data from a total of four independent experiments; the asterisk indicates P<0.001).