Vinculin is a protein associated with focal adhesions and adherens junctions, which are complexes that serve as nucleation sites for actin filaments and as crosslinkers between the external medium, plasma membrane, and actin cytoskeleton. Studies of vinculin suggest that the protein may be involved in wound healing, embryonic tissue development, and the metastasis of cancerous tumors.
Bovine Pulmonary Artery Endothelial Cells
The adherent culture of BPAE cells featured in the digital image above was immunofluorescently labeled with primary anti-vinculin mouse monoclonal antibodies followed by goat anti-mouse Fab heavy and light chain fragments conjugated to Alexa Fluor 569 (red emission). In addition, the specimen was simultaneously stained for DNA with Hoechst 33258 (blue emission), and for the cytoskeletal filamentous actin network with Alexa Fluor 488 (green emission) conjugated to phalloidin. Images were recorded in grayscale with a Hamamatsu ORCA AG camera system coupled to a ZEISS Axio Imager microscope equipped with bandpass emission fluorescence filter optical blocks provided by Chroma and Semrock. During the processing stage, individual image channels were pseudocolored with RGB values corresponding to each of the fluorophore emission spectral profiles.