Effects of verapamil on Cx43 immunostaining in an animal model of ischemia.

<p>In rat hearts subjected to 45 mins ischemia, most Cx43 signals disappeared and the location of vestigial Cx43 was distributed sparsely at the intercalated disks and most of the Cx43 signals were distributed on the flank of myocardial cells. In contrast, verapamil (at 1 mg/kg was i.v. injected into a femoral vein 10 min prior to ischemia) resulted in a marked preservation of Cx43 signals in gap junctions.