Differential morphological plasticity of proximal and distal hPTECs upon treatment with TGF-β.

<p>(A) hPTECs were seeded at passage 1 at low (25 000 cells/cm²) or high density (75 000 cells/cm²) at day 1. Cells were treated with TGF-β (2 ng/ml) at day 2. Phase contrast images were taken at day 5. Scale bar: 200 µm. (B) Cells were treated as in A. N-Cadherin-positive proximal tubular cells (red) and E-cadherin-positive cells (green) were detected by immunocytochemistry. Scale bar: 50 µm. (C) Cells depicted in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0043584#pone-0043584-g001" target="_blank">Fig. 1B</a> (high density, TGF-β) were analyzed by epifluorescence with ApoTome technique to present x–y and x–z projections, respectively.