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Connexin specific distribution within gap junctions revealed in living cells

Matthias M. Falk

Department of Cell Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA

Movie sequence 1:

Three-dimensional volume reconstruction of a junctional membrane area consisting of 4 gap junction plaques (shown in Fig. 4B) that was rendered from a deconvolved stack of 25 consecutive z-section images spaced 0.4 mm apart covering 10 mm and rotated 180° around its longitudinal axis. Note that the plaques appearing as short one-dimensional lines in an edge-on view actually represent two-dimensional sheets of channels.

Movie sequence 2:

Three-dimensional volume reconstruction of a large gap junction plaque visible onto its edge (shown in Fig. 4C) that was rendered from a deconvolved stack of 65 consecutive z-section images spaced 0.2 mm apart covering 13 mm and rotated 360° around its longitudinal axis. Note the depth of the plaque, its irregular edges, and the large number of fluorescent vesicles in the cytoplasms.

Movie sequence 3:

Three-dimensional volume reconstruction of the gap junction plaque shown in Fig. 4D that was rendered from a deconvolved stack of 50 consecutive z-section images spaced 0.2 mm apart covering 10 mm and rotated 360° around its longitudinal axis. Note the shape of the plaque that appears as a ‘U’ in cross-section, and the structural details, including the wavy edges, nonjunctional membrane areas (dark holes within the bright junctional membrane), and a plaque-extension that is linked with the main plaque only through a few channels wide connection.

Movie sequence 4:

Three-dimensional volume reconstruction of the gap junction plaque shown in Fig. 4F rendered from a deconvolved stack of 50 consecutive z-section images spaced 0.2 mm apart covering 10 mm and rotated 180° around its longitudinal axis. Note the shape of the plaque that appears as an ‘L’ in cross-section, and the structural details, including the wavy edges, nonjunctional membranes, invaginations, and vesicles in the close vicinity of the plaque.

Movie sequence 5:

Three-dimensional volume reconstruction of the gap junction plaque shown in Fig. 4G that was rendered from a deconvolved stack of 15 consecutive z-section images spaced 0.2 mm apart covering 3 mm, and rotated 180° around its longitudinal axis. Note the shape of the plaque that appears as an ‘L’ in cross-section, and the structural details, including the jagged edges, nonjunctional membranes (round, and irregular shaped), deep invaginations, and the extensions on the right end of the plaque that follow interlocking cell-to-cell contact sites.

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