Figure 1.

Effects of high-fat diet feeding on guinea pig hearts. Compared to LFD-fed male and female guinea pig ventricular samples (A), HFD animals showed a marked increase in interstitial fibrosis (B), but not in OAD-fed guinea pigs (C). (D) Quantification of percent (%) fibrotic area in the ventricular samples (n = 4 LFD, 5 HFD, 3 OAD). (E) Confocal immunofluorescent images of LFD (Top image) and HFD (Bottom image) guinea pig ventricular slices analyzed using TGF-β antibodies (Red), WGA (Green), and DAPI (Blue), showed significantly increased TGF-β fluorescence labeling in HFD ventricular tissue slices compared to LFD controls (F), suggesting HFD feeding promotes the overactivation of inflammatory signaling in guinea pig heart (n = 5 LFD, 5 HFD). Numbers in brackets represent the number of hearts examined. Data columns represent mean ± S.E.M, *^,# Statistical significance at p < 0.05.