Fig. 4. Wnt6 activates the ß-catenin pathway. Projections of confocal dorsal views (A,B,E,F,I,J) and confocal transverse sections (C,D,G,H,K,L) of somites electroporated with GFP (A-D), DN ß-catenin (E), DN Lef1 (F-H), DN Lef1 and GFP (1:1, J), DN Lef1 and paraxis (1:1, J-L). Sections are stained with a combination of phalloidin red, recognising F-actin (in red) and an antibody directed against N-cadherin (in blue), together with the GFP (in green). Sections in D,H,L show the N-cadherin staining only. (A-D) Control, GFP electroporated somites with typical long bottle-shaped cells (arrowheads in A) that display the adherens junction-specific markers F-actin and N-cadherin at their apical end (C,D). (B) Enlargement of cells in A. (E-H) Dermomyotome cells electroporated with DN ß-catenin (E) or DN Lef1 (F-H) display a round morphology with a clear redistribution of the adherens junction markers at the plasma membrane (G,H). (J-L) Dermomyotome cells expressing DN Lef1 together with paraxis display a normal epithelial-like morphology (J) with adherens-junction marker at the apical end (K,L). (M) Quantification of experiments shown in A-L, where coloured bars represent the percentage of epithelial and round cells in somites electroporated with GFP only (yellow bar), DN Lef1 and GFP (blue bar), or a combination of DN Lef1 and paraxis (purple bar). After GFP electroporation, only 1.5% of the cells displayed a round morphology. The electroporation of DN Lef1+GFP increases the number of round cells to 62.5%, while the co-electroporation of DN Lef1 and paraxis significantly rescues the epithelial morphology, as only 24.8% of the cells display a round morphology. Standard deviations are indicated.