Figure 4

Live cell imaging of HeLa-mCherry tubulin cells shows that transfection with EGFP-NS2 leads to prolonged mitosis and binucleation events. HeLa-mCherry cells mock transfected or transfected with plasmids expressing either EGFP or an EGFP-NS2 fusion proteins were followed using live cell imaging as described in Materials and methods. (A) Cells transfected with pEGFP-NS2 spent a significantly longer time in mitosis than cells transfected with pEGFP alone, or untransfected cells (p = 0.038). (B) Cells expressing EGFP-NS2 showed the lowest level of completed mitosis (p < 0.0001). (C) In cells that successfully completed mitosis, only those transfected with EGFP-NS2 displayed binucleation events (p < 0.0001), while mock transfected cells, or cells expressing EGFP alone showed a normal mitosis outcome.