Increased expression and amount of calpain-1 in cultured cardiomyocytes stimulated with septic serum.

<p>The fluorescent signal for calpain-1 disclosed increased in cardiomyocytes challenged with serum from septic mice (bottom panel, green fluorescence) in comparison with the fluorescent signal in cardiomyocytes stimulated with serum from sham-operated mice (upper panel, green fluorescence). F-actin was stained with Alexa Fluor 594 dye (red fluorescence) and DNA with DAPI (blue fluorescence). Western blotting demonstrated a strikingly increased, around 168%, of calpain-1 amount in cardiomyocytes stimulated with serum from septic animals compared to cardiomyocytes stimulated with serum from sham-operated mice (*, P<0.01). GAPDH was used as a protein loading control. Data are expressed as mean ± S.D. Scale bars indicate 50 μm.