Fig. 5

Enhanced disruption of cell-to-cell junctions by H. pylori expressing two htrA gene copies. Polarized Caco-2 cells were left untreated (mock) (a) or infected for 24 h with H. pylori wild-type (wt) (b) and H. pylori htrA ²⁶⁶⁹⁵ (c). The cells were fixed with methanol and subjected to immunofluorescence using α-E-cadherin (green) and α-H. pylori (red) antibodies. Arrowheads mark cells showing significantly downregulated (blue) or disrupted (yellow) E-cadherin signals. Scale bars, 10 μm. d Quantification of overall fluorescence signals for E-cadherin stainings, which are given in “fold change”. The total E-cadherin signal in the uninfected mock control was set as “1”