Fig. 4.

Analysis of hypertrophic cell morphology and gene markers. Panel A: Confocal fluorescence micrographs of neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocytes stained with α-actinin (green), laminin (red) and DAPI (blue) following treatment with Phenylephrine (10 μM), IL-6 (50 ng/ml), LIF (50 ng/ml) for 24 h in serum-free medium. The upper panel represents untreated myocytes (control). Magnification 40 ×. Panel B: mean cell area ± SEM (n = 200) of untreated (control) and neonatal rat cardiomyocytes treated (as above) for 24 h in serum free medium. Cell area was analysed with using Adobe Photoshop. Statistical analysis was performed using Student's t-test. **p < 0.05 versus control. Representative RT-PCR of untreated (control) and neonatal rat cardiomyocytes treated (as above) for 12 h in serum-free medium. RT-PCR was performed using oligonucleotide primers for the hypertrophic markers, ANF and SERC2a. GAPDH was used as a housekeeping control.