Fig. 2.

Confocal micrographs of human heart tissue immunostained for the intercalated discs and the myofibrils. Longitudinal cryosections of human heart tissue from a control individual (male, 23 years) and a dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) patient (male, 31 years) were stained with mouse monoclonal antibodies against β-catenin (red signal and middle row) and rabbit polyclonal antibodies against MyBP-C (green signal and bottom row). Nuclei were stained with DAPI and are shown in blue. While overall tissue arrangement and myofibril alignment are relatively unaffected in DCM, an increased signal for β-catenin compared to control can be observed at the intercalated discs (arrows) and also laterally (arrowheads) in DCM. Scale bar is 10 μm.