Fig. 6.

Fibrillin microfibril morphology. (a) Abundant fibrillin microfibrils were isolated from control and diabetic aorta and imaged with AFM. (b) Fibrillin microfibril length (n = 100 length measurements per group). (c) Mean microfibril periodicity. Each bar represents an individual animal. 500 individual periodicity measurements were made for each animal. (d) Histogram showing a unimodal distribution in the controls as compared to bi-modal periodicity distribution in the diabetic group. (e) Lorentzian fit of the periodicity histogram data confirming that in the control group the distribution is centred at 56 nm (Lorentzian fit, R² = 0.95 nm) whereas in the diabetic group it follows a bi-modal distribution centred at 51 and 73 nm, Lorentzian fit, R² = 0.89 nm). Note there are two fitted peaks for the diabetic group (in red).