Fig. 7

Azan-Mallory staining for perivascular collagen expression. a Azan-Mallory stained myocardial sections from a vehicle-treated +/+ and LIRA-treated +/+ rats showing low levels of collagen deposition (blue fibrils); broad adventitial ring of strong blue fibrotic tissue reactivity in a vehicle-treated fa/fa rats; LIRA-treated fa/fa rats showing moderate blue fibrous tissue positivity around a coronary artery. Scale bar are 20 µm. b Quantification of perivascular fibrosis (%). c Protein expression levels of OPN detected by Western blotting. β-actin was used as an internal control. Bands are representative of two separate experiments. Relative density values of OPN, data are shown as the mean ± SEM, N = 5–6 rats per group. The significance of group differences was determined by ANOVA for factors of genotype (G), drug treatment (T) and their interaction term (I)