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. 2020 Aug 4;9(16):e016419. doi: 10.1161/JAHA.120.016419

Figure 4. Cardiac‐specific Nulp1 overexpression in mice reverses aortic banding (AB)‐induced cardiac hypertrophy.

Figure 4

A, Left, schematic diagram depicting the construction of cardiac‐restricted Nulp1 transgenic (TG) mice. Right, representative western blots showing the NULP1 (nuclear localized protein 1) protein levels in different organ tissues from wild‐type (WT) and TG mice. B, Comparison of heart weight (HW)/body weight (BW) ratios in WT and TG mice subjected to sham or AB surgery for 4 weeks. n=12 to 14 mice per group. C, Echocardiography analyses showing left ventricular end‐diastolic diameter (LVEDd) and left ventricular fractional shortening (LVFS) of WT and TG mice subjected to sham or AB operation for 4 weeks. n=10 to 12 mice per group. D, Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining of whole‐heart sections along the short axes showing the gross morphology of the hearts from WT and TG mice 4 weeks after sham or AB surgery. n=7 to 8 mice per group. Scale bar, 1000 μm. E, Left, heart sections stained with H&E and WGA (wheat germ agglutinin) showing the individual myofibril morphology in the indicated groups. n=7 to 8 mice per group. Scale bars, 20 μm. Right, quantification of the average cross‐sectional areas of cardiomyocytes from the indicated groups. n>100 cells per group. F, mRNA levels of hypertrophic marker genes atrial natriuretic peptide (Anp), brain natriuretic peptide (Bnp), and Myh7 as determined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) in the indicated groups. n=4 mice per group. G, Left, picrosirius red (PSR) staining of heart sections from WT and TG mice subjected to sham or AB operation for 4 weeks to visualize collagen deposition. n=7 to 8 mice per group. Scale bars, 50 μm. Right, quantitative results of LV collagen volume in the indicated groups. n>40 fields per group. H, qPCR analyses of the transcript levels of fibrotic marker genes collagen I (Col1), collagen III (Col3), and connective tissue growth factor (Ctgf) in the indicated groups. n=4 mice per group. For all statistical plots, the data are presented as the mean±SD; in (B, C, E through H, *P<0.05, **P<0.01; the statistical analysis was performed using 1‐way ANOVA or two‐tailed student's t test. In (F and H) the dotted line indicates the mRNA levels in the WT sham group, which were normalized to 1. GAPDH indicates glyceraldehyde‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase.