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. 2017 Sep 7;6(9):e005086. doi: 10.1161/JAHA.116.005086

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy have short cardiomyocyte telomeres. A, Representative images of quantitative fluorescence in situ hybridization (Q‐FISH) analysis, immunostained for the cardiomyocyte‐specific marker, cardiac troponin T (cTnT, green), telomeric probe (red), and 4′,6‐diamidino‐2‐phenylindole (DAPI) for nuclei (blue). White dotted lines mark the area used for telomere analysis within the nucleus of each cardiomyocyte. Scale bar, 10 μm. B, Telomere length distribution histogram of individual cardiomyocytes from nonfailing donors (NFDs) and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patient cardiac samples. Data are presented as percentage of cells within the patients' spectrum of the telomeric length range. Black and red vertical lines were drawn at the median value of the histogram obtained for NFDs and patients with HCM, respectively. The shift in telomeric length from NFD to HCM histogram median value is shown by the red horizontal line (Wilcoxon rank sum test, P=0.016). N indicates the number of cardiomyocytes scored (see also Table 2). The percentage of cells with short and long telomeres is shown in the graph. C, Boxplot analysis shows average telomere length measurements in NFDs and patients with HCM (Mann–Whitney test, P=0.003). A total of 26 NFDs and 17 patients with HCM were analyzed.