A priori, the decrease in α-catenin levels could be due to either direct transcriptional repression by Snail or perturbations in AJ formation caused by the decrease in E-cadherin gene expression. To distinguish between these possibilities, we tested whether α-catenin levels could be restored by exogenous expression of E-cadherin in Snail-expressing keratinocytes. As shown in Figure 4C, transiently transfected keratinocytes expressing HA-tagged Snail displayed a loss of E-cadherin and α-catenin at cell-cell borders. Coexpression of exogenous HA-tagged E-cadherin not only enabled cell-cell border localization of E-cadherin protein, but also rescued the cell-cell border staining of α-catenin (Figure 4C). The ability to restore α-catenin expression and localization under these conditions argues against the notion that Snail transcriptionally represses α-catenin. Rather, the findings are consistent with a previous report that E-cadherin is required for the translation of α-catenin mRNA [22].