Figure 4. Mitochondrial dimensions and rate of flickering in hypertension.

(a,b) Mitochondria in freshly-isolated ex vivo myocytes from both hypertensive (SHR, red) and normotensive control (WKY, blue) rats displayed a range of sizes that was shifted to larger areas in hypertension, scale bars (b) 5 μm. (c) Mitochondria in SHR were longer and wider than those in WKY (left-hand panels in c and c’ show individual measurements of each mitochondrion with summarized data of median values for each animal superimposed, these median values alone are shown in the expanded-scale panels at right of c and c’; median–thick lines, IQR–grey boxes, and max/min values - whiskers, **p < 0.01, N = 5 animals). (d) The mitochondrial length:width ratio, however, was the same in SHR and WKY (left panel shows individual ratios for each mitochondrion with summarized median values for each animal superimposed, these median values alone are shown in the expanded-scale right-hand panel; median values–thick lines, IQR–grey boxes, and max/min values-whiskers, N = 5 animals, p = 0.837). (e) Quantification of flicker events (ΔΨ_m de- or re-polarizations) in each imaging frame during FaLM imaging in myocytes from SHR (red) and WKY (blue) rats, raw data smoothed by 30-point FFT filter (hence over 10 s window), error bars are standard deviation of raw data.