Fig. 1.

Characterization of human calcified aorta. A) Representative images of the human aorta sections stained with von Kossa to detect calcium deposit (black arrows). Scale bar, 100 μm. B) Representative image of SEM showing HAp (Blue) on the surface of vascular cells (brown) in the calcified aorta. Scale bar, 1 μm. C) Representative images of TEM showing nano-sized HAp (black arrows) located intracellularly (middle) and extracellularly (right). Scale bar, 2 μm and 500 nm. D) Immunofluorescent staining of aorta sections shows expression of α-SMA and Runx2. Scale bar, 250 μm.