Journal: iScience
Article Title: Mesenchymal-epithelial transition reduces proliferation but increases immune evasion in tumor spheroids
doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.113023
Figure Lengend Snippet: Cell crowding causes cytoplasmic arrest of YAP1 and reduced proliferation in both mesenchymal and MET-induced MDA-MB-231 in 2D culture (A) Immunofluorescence images showing the intracellular distribution of YAP1 (green) in control (mesenchymal) and induced (epithelial) cells at 4 different seeding densities after 3 days of growth. Nuclei are stained by DAPI (blue). Scale bar = 50 μ m. (B) Nucleus-to-cytoplasm ratio of YAP1 intensity at different seeding densities corresponding to images shown in panel a. Average values of nucleus-to-cytoplasm ratios were calculated for each recorded frame, see panel a, giving rise to one data point in the statistics. For simplicity, the three-star significance between density 1 and 2, and density 2 and 3 were omitted in the chart. Details on the analysis can be found in the Section ‘ ’. (C) Fluorescence images of cells subject to an EdU proliferation assay at 4 different seeding densities in control (mesenchymal) and induced (epithelial) cells. Cells that have undergone S phase during the incubation time show EdU positive nuclei (red) while the rest of the nuclei are stained with only DAPI (blue). Scale bar = 50 μ m. (D) Percentage of EdU positive nuclei at different seeding densities for both conditions. For each recorded frame, fractions of EdU positive cells were determined. Correspondingly, each recorded frame gave rise to one data point, see Section “ ”. (E and F) Scatterplots showing YAP1 localization ratio and percentage of EdU positive cells, respectively, in control and MET-induced MDA-MB-231 with relation to cell density. Cell density is expressed in number of nuclei per area of a recorded frame. (G) Schematic representation of the micro-patterned surfaces used to constrain the area in which cells can adhere to the substrate on adhesive RGD squares of 20 μ m edge length. (H, H’) Representative images of cells seeded on unpatterned (top row) and micro-patterned surfaces to limit the cell spread (bottom row). Top (H): control, bottom (H’): MET-induced. Green: YAP1 immunostaining, blue: DAPI staining of cell nuclei. Scale bar = 20 μ m. (I and J) bar charts showing cellular spreading area (I) and YAP1 nuclear accumulation (J) for unconstrained cells and cells on micro-patterned surfaces. Each cell sampled constitutes a data point in the statistics. For panels B, D, I, and J, bar heights represent the mean and error bars show the corresponding standard error of the mean. Further, “n” shows the total number of technical replicates sampled from at least 2 independent biological replicates. Significance was tested using a two-tailed Mann-Whitney-U-Test and p ≤ 0.05. ∗ ≤ 0.05, ∗∗ ≤ 0.01 and ∗∗∗ ≤ 0.001. See also .
Article Snippet: YAP1 Rabbit polyclonal antibody , Proteintech , Cat#13584-1-AP; RRID: AB_2218915.
Techniques: Immunofluorescence, Control, Staining, Fluorescence, Proliferation Assay, Incubation, Adhesive, Immunostaining, Two Tailed Test, MANN-WHITNEY