fig5

Figure 5. Myocardial fibrosis in the Myh6-Mcm^Tam:Dsp^F/F mice. (A) Gross heart morphology showing epicardial fibrosis in the Myh6-Mcm^Tam:Dsp^F/F heart. (B) Heart weight/body weight ratio. (C) Low (upper panel) and high (lower panel) magnification of thin myocardial sections stained with picrosirius red showing extensive myocardial fibrosis (red). (D) Quantitative data of myocardial fibrosis presented as collagen volume fraction as the percentage of myocardium occupied by fibrosis. (E) Immunofluorescence staining of thin myocardial sections for COL1A1 protein, a marker of fibrosis. (F) GSEA plot showing enrichment of genes involved in extracellular matrix organization. (G) Heat map of the DEGs showing upregulation of genes involved in fibrosis in the Myh6-Mcm^Tam:Dsp^F/F heart. (H) Dot plots depicting transcript levels of over a dozen genes involved in fibrosis in the experimental groups. (I) Immunoblot showing expressing of the latent and mature TGFβalong with that of VCL, the latter as a loading control. (J) Dot plots showing quantitative data of the mature TGFβ protein levels in the cardiac protein extracts from the experimental groups. (K) Dot plots showing quantitative data of the latent TGFβ protein levels, as in panel J.