Fig. 5. TES affects the rate of cell spreading. Rat-1 fibroblasts stably expressing GFP control or GFP-tagged full-length TES or were replated onto fibronectin-coated coverslips and allowed to adhere and spread for the times indicated. (A) Cells were fixed and direct fluorescence confocal microscopy used to visualise GFP or GFP-tagged full length TES. (B) Cells were fixed and stained with TRITC-labelled phalloidin to visualise endogenous actin stress fibres. (C) Histogram comparing the percentage of enlarged cells in GFP and GFP-TES-expressing Rat-1 fibroblasts. To determine the significance of the enhanced spreading in the GFP-TES-expressing cells this effect was quantified in three independent experiments at 15, 30 and 60 minutes after plating onto fibronectin. The largest GFP-expressing cells were of similar size to smaller GFP-TES-expressing cells and were scored as enlarged and the remaining scored as small. The smaller of the GFP-TES-expressing cells, which were similar in size to the larger GFP-expressing cells, were scored as small and the remaining scored as enlarged. The results represent the percentage enlarged at each time point. *P<0.002, Student's t-test, n=3 independent experiments

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