“…Antibodies and reagents. We used commercially available monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) directed against HSPG (unlabeled and FITC-conjugated; Seikagaku, Tokyo, Japan); CD9 (unlabeled 72F6 from Novocastra, Newcastle, UK and PE-labeled M-L13 from BD Pharmingen, Heidelberg, Germany) and integrin • V ß 5 (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Santa Cruz, CA, USA), and the previously described mAbs NCA-1 and NCA-4 (19) recognizing both rat and human CD9. In all experiments, the specificity of these antibodies was confirmed by parallel processing with murine isotypematched control antibodies: IgG 1 and IgG 2a from Southern Biotechnology, Birmingham, AL, USA; IgM, FITC-labeled IgM, and PE-labeled IgG from BD-Pharmingen.…”