Ventricular remodeling, fibrosis and expression of proteins involved in the pathologic cardiac hypertrophy pathway.

<p>Representative images (40x magnification) of HE-stained cross sections (A) of the LV of rats without manipulation (C; n = 6) or submitted to RT (RT; n = 6) or PSD (PSD96; n = 6) or RT followed by PSD (RT/PSD96; n = 6). (B) The images (40x magnification) are the LV tissue sections stained with picrosirius red. Red color stretches are collagen depositions. (C) Images (1.25x magnification) of HE-stained the LV cavity diameter of the heart. (D) Myocyte CSA calculated from the HE-stained sections as shown in A. (E) Histogram showing collagen volume fraction in the LV tissues. (F) Results of the analysis of the LV cavity diameter as shown in C. (G) Quantification of NFATc3 expression. (H) Representative blots of NFATc3, GATA-4 and GAPDH. (I) Quantification of GATA-4 expression. For analysis, we utilized one way ANOVA followed by Duncan’s post hoc. The data are shown as the mean ± standard deviation, significance accepted: p ≤ 0.05. *—Different from the C group; ^†—Different from the RT group; ^‡—Different from the PSD96 group.