Fig. 3: MPS is not sufficient to explain pearled axon morphology.
From: Membrane mechanics dictate axonal pearls-on-a-string morphology and function
a, Example micrographs of axons from cultured mouse hippocampal neurons treated with either 0.2% DMSO or 20 µM LatA for 30 min; scale bars, 200 nm. b, Plots showing the dimensions of NSVs (left) and connectors (right) from axons in a (DMSO: NSV length 630 ± 13 nm, NSV width 320 ± 5 nm, connector length 600 ± 18 nm, connector width 136 ± 3 nm; LatA: NSV length 230 ± 11 nm, NSV width 320 ± 5 nm, connector length 570 ± 20 nm, connector width 136 ± 4 nm). c, Example micrographs of axons from neurons infected with lentivirus carrying either scramble or Sptbn1 (βII spectrin) shRNA; scale bars, 200 nm. d, Plots showing dimensions of NSVs (left) and connectors (right) from axons in c. e, Example micrographs of axons from neurons treated with 0.1% DMSO, 50 µM nocodazole or 10 µM blebbistatin for 1 h; scale bars, 200 nm. f, Plots showing dimensions of NSVs (left) and connectors (right) from axons in e (DMSO: NSV length 600 ± 12 nm, NSV width 350 ± 7 nm, connector length 520 ± 19 nm, connector width 115 ± 3 nm; nocodazole: NSV length 590 ± 10 nm, NSV width 300 ± 3 nm, connector length 450 ± 13 nm, connector width 200 ± 6 nm; blebbistatin: NSV length 590 ± 11 nm, NSV width 290 ± 4 nm, connector length 430 ± 12 nm, connector width 215 ± 5 nm). In each experiment, N = 3 independent cultures and n = 300 axons. Super plots showing variability are available in Extended Data Fig. 5. Data are shown as mean ± s.e.m. All conditions in the figure were analyzed at the same time, and, thus, a Kruskal–Wallis test followed by a Dunn’s multiple comparison test was used.
