Figure 5.

(a) Representative fluorescent images of fibroblasts cultured on hybrid-hydrogel showed expression of Col1a1 (Green) and αSMA (Red) promoters with a Hoechst nuclear counterstain (Blue). Scale bar, 25 µm. (b) Quantification of the percentage of fibroblasts expressing Col1a1 and αSMA of showed that microenvironmental stiffness significantly increased fibroblast activation (p< 0.0001, N = 6, 6 fields of view per image) while dECM origin did not. (c) Evaluating the average intensity of Col1a1 and αSMA expression per cell showed significant increases in expression on stiffened hybrid-hydrogels compared to soft controls (p < 0.05). While no statistical differences were measured, a trend toward increasing intensity was observed when comparing bleomycin stiffened hydrogels to healthy stiffened hydrogels (p = 0.754, N = 6, 6 fields of view per image).