Journal: Journal of the American Heart Association: Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Disease

Article Title: Dietary Branched‐Chain Amino Acids Modify Postinfarct Cardiac Remodeling and Function in the Murine Heart

doi: 10.1161/JAHA.124.037637

Figure Lengend Snippet: Examination of cardiac collagen content and organization: A , Intact midpapillary sections stained with PSR; B , quantification of PSR signal (cardiac fibrosis) and ( C ) scar thickness (n=6–9 biological replicates); D , Computational assessment of scar collagen architecture in SHG‐imaged infarct segments. Left to right, representative master SHG images from postinfarct scar regions (region of interest: 256×256 pixel), CurveAlign‐generated images displaying the spatial distribution (red dots) and direction (green lines) of collagen fiber segments, corresponding CurveAlign sourced heatmaps depicting the relative alignment of collagen fibers across the region (red denotes regions of high alignment), and, lastly, CT‐FIRE extracted fibers overlaid on master SHG images (individual fibers are separated by varying colored lines). From these computational analyses, macrostructural collagen attributes were enumerated and graphed, including ( E ) fiber alignment, ( F ) fiber width, and ( G ) fiber straightness (n=3 biological replicates per sex per group). Data are mean±SEM. Normality was assessed via Shapiro–Wilk test. Parametric unpaired Student's t test or nonparametric Mann–Whitney U test as appropriate. Scale bar=8.14 μm. BCAA indicates branched‐chain amino acid; PSR, picrosirius red; and SHG, second harmonic generation.

Article Snippet: The regions of interest were subject to computational analyses using MATLAB software packages CurveAlign and CT‐FIRE, as described, to quantify macrostructural attributes of the collagen fiber network (collagen fiber alignment, width, and straightness).

Techniques: Staining, Generated, MANN-WHITNEY