Figure 2. Nucleostemin expression is induced by myocardial infarction.

(A) Confocal microscopy of myocardial sections at various time points following myocardial infarction. Nucleostemin expression (green, at arrows) is observed in surviving cardiomyocytes within the border zone surrounding the infarct. Tropomyosin (red) labels sarcomeric structure and nuclei are labeled with Topro-3 stain (blue). (B) Immunoblot shows time course of nucleostemin expression after myocardial infarction peaking at 72 hours post-induction. (C) Confocal microscopy showing coincidence of nucleostemin (green) and c-kit (red) expression in cells lining a vessel proximal to the region of injury at four days post-infarction. Inset at upper right shows the boxed region (yellow) at higher magnification. Nuclei are labeled with Topro-3 stain (blue) (D) Confocal microscopy showing nucleostemin (green) and c-kit (red) expression coincident in a small cell (arrow) at the interface between the border zone (BZ) and infarct region (IR). A cell expressing c-kit but lacking nucleostemin is also shown (arrowhead). Single channel scans that were used for creation of the color overlays are shown on the left of each panel.