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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Mar 2.
Published in final edited form as: Int J Cardiol Cardiovasc Dis. 2021;1(1):1–14. doi: 10.46439/cardiology.1.001

Figure 4: Cardiac cell therapy engraftment and myocyte gap junctions.

Figure 4:

(a)Low magnification widefield images of immune compromised (athymic, cyclosporin treated) adult rat cardiac sections 6-weeks after injection with (a) vehicle control or (b) GFP expressing human embryonic stem cells differentiated to cardiac myocytes (hESC-CM), stained with GFP (magenta) WGA (green) and Hoechst (blue). Inset shows F-actin staining of the same region of graft in an adjacent section, bar=10 μm. (c) Vehicle injected rat cardiac section stained for GFP (magenta), Connexin 43 (Cx43, red), WGA (green) and Hoechst (blue) showing gap junctions. 165 confocal images z-step size=300 nm. Bar=20 μm. (d) hESC-CM injected rat sections stained for GFP (magenta), Connexin 43 (Cx43, red), WGA (green) and Hoechst (blue) GFP+ graft and gap junctions demonstrating large patches of fibrosis around graft. 345 confocal images z-step size=300 nm. Bar=20 μm. (e) Example of well-integrated graft showing each stain individually and a 3D reconstruction of the graft-host interface. 135 confocal images z-step size=300 nm. Bar=10 μm. (c-e) Orthogonal slices, indicated by the yellow cross-lines, from 3D reconstructions are shown from images acquired with a 60x oil NA=1.4 objective.