FIGURE 1.

Adrenergic signaling caused ultrastructural changes in ICDs of murine cardiomyocytes and leads to positive adhesiotropy. (A) Transmission electron microscopy was performed from cardiac slices derived from the hearts of 12-week-old Jup WT and KO mice (for the sake of terminology here, we used PG gene name “Jup” for labeling) treated with F/R and Iso for 1 h and representative images were displayed. Scale bar: 375 nm. * indicates gap junction and the yellow arrow indicates the area composita. n = 3 mice per condition. (B) Exemplar images of how the analysis of junctional plaque thickness and length of area composita were obtained (as explained in section “Materials and Methods”). (C) Bar graphs of plaque thickness and length of area composita measured corresponding to A. Every dot corresponds to one ICD, mean ± SEM. (D) Dissociation assays performed in cardiac slices derived from Jup WT and KO mice treated with F/R and Iso for 1 h showing an increase of cell adhesion upon adrenergic signaling treatment in Jup WT mice which was completely absent in Jup KO mice. n = 4 mice per condition. Two-way repeated measure ANOVA with Tukey’s post hoc test was performed. **p < 0.005, ***p < 0.0005, ****p < 0.00005.