Fig. 8. Rho and Cdc42, but not Rac 1, are involved in actin polymerization induced by N. meningitidis. Confluent monolayers of HUVECs were either left untreated (control), treated with 30 µM Y27632 prior to the infection and during the infection (Y27632), microinjected with the recombinant exoenzyme C3 of C. botulinum 2 hours before cell infection (C3) or microinjected with the cDNA encoding a dominant-negative form of Rac (RacN¹⁷) or Cdc42 (Cdc42N¹⁷) 18 hours or 5 hours prior to infection of the monolayer, respectively. Cells were then infected for 4 hours and labeled for bacteria, F-actin and myc tag. The percentages of bacterial colonies associated with polymerized actin were determined by immunofluorescence analysis. Each condition was compared with non-treated cells infected in the same conditions. Results correspond to counts of 1600 infected cells in 3 to 10 distinct experiments per condition.

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