Fig. 1. Effects of calpain inhibition on the cellular morphology of CHO cells plated on fibronectin. (A) Cells were cultured for 12 hours on fibronectin-coated coverslips (10 µg/ml) and co-stained for vinculin (a,c,e) and actin (b,d,f). Cells that expressed calpastatin (c,d) or those treated with ALLN (e,f) demonstrated fewer but larger, more peripheral focal adhesions than controls (a,b). There was also a loss of central actin stress fibers after calpain inhibition. (B) Cells expressing hrEGFP-calpastatin (a,b) displayed similar effects on vinculin and actin distribution to those of control cells (c,d). Insets show GFP-positive cells and arrows show corresponding cells. The cells presented are representative of the phenotype observed from a minimum of three separate experiments. Bars, 10 µm.

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