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. 2018 Mar 28;13(3):e0194706. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0194706

Fig 2. Contractile structure and function of cardiac tissues engineered on gels of varying stiffness.

Fig 2

Using α-actinin immunographs from NRVM engineered on soft (1 kPa, A-i), normal (13 kPa, A-ii), and stiff (90 kPa, A-iii) gels we assessed differences in sarcomere length (SL) and sarcomere packing density (SPD, B). Scale bar 50 μm. Further, we performed TFM on diamond-shaped NRVM tissues engineered on soft (C-i), normal (C-ii), and stiff (C-iii) gels (peak systolic stress shown) to calculate (D) maximum deformation, peak stress, and total contractile work (strain energy). Results are given as mean ± s.e.m. and N = 3, 4, and 7 for soft, normal, and stiff gels respectively. The symbol * implies significant differences (p < 0.05) compared with the group of the same color.