Fig. 6.

Adenosine receptors are widely express in human non-stenotic and stenotic aortic valves. Representative images of fibrosa and ventriculatis of non-stenotic and stenotic aortic valve (n = 3) stained with Orcein Mertius Scarlet Blue (OMSB) and representative images of matching sections stained by immunofluorescence (red signal) for four types of adenosine receptors (a). Scale bar = 100 μm. Quantitative analysis of A1R, A2aR, A2bR, A3R positive area that corresponds to the red signal (b). Fluorescence values of the negative control slices were substracted from the fluorescence value of the stained slices. Results are shown as mean ± SEM. Relative mRNA expression for four types of adenosine receptors in human non-stenotic (n = 6) and stenotic (n = 9) aortic valves (c). TBP mRNA was used for normalization. The average expression for each adenosine receptor normalized per TBP mRNA was estimated from measurements for three leaflets independently, in the sites free of calcification. Results are shown as mean ± SD; **p < 0.01 vs. non-stenotic valve by student t test