Figure 5.

Collagen deposition in areas of small, nontransmural infarctions in OPN⁻/⁻-hearts during repetitive I/R. (a) Representative section of left ventricle in a WT-heart after 7 days I/R shows interstitial fibrosis in picrosirius red staining. (b) In contrast, OPN⁻/⁻-mice reveal relatively loose collagen deposition in areas of cardiomyocyte loss-small, nontransmural infarctions (arrows and dotted lines show confluent areas of patchy replacement fibrosis), but less interstitial collagen in the ischemic area. (c) Planimetrical analysis of collagen stained area between the genotypes after 7 days I/R. (d) Differential analysis of collagen deposition in small, nontransmural infarctions. n = 8–11/group. Scale bars represent 200 μm. Bracket indicates P ≤ 0.05 between genotypes; ∗ indicates P ≤ 0.05 versus respective shams.