Atrial Fibrillation and Fibrosis: Beyond the Cardiomyocyte Centric View

Figure 3

Phenotype characteristics and electrical coupling between myofibroblasts and cardiomyocytes. (a) Immunocytochemistry and phase contrast picture shows expression of αSMA (red) in cardiac fibroblasts, which have differentiated to myofibroblasts after 3 days in culture. (b) Parenchymal cardiomyocytes and not stromal myofibroblasts express desmin (blue). (c) Myofibroblast αSMA positive cells (red) express Cx43 (green) at cell-cell contacts and at contacts with cardiomyocytes. The corresponding phase contrast picture shows spatially the contact between coculture of myofibroblasts and cardiomyocytes (reprinted with permission from [5]).

(a)

(b)

(c)