B. Murienne - Master Project Thesis - Infoscience - EPFL

Figure 28. Immunostaining of a micropatterned cardiomyocyte monolayer (obj. ×20). Red= sarcomeric alphaactinin
(cardiomyocytes), green = connexin-43 and blue = DNA (nuclei). Scale bar = 20 µm.
Figure 29. Immunostaining of a micropatterned cardiomyocyte monolayer (obj. ×40). Red= sarcomeric alphaactinin
(cardiomyocytes), green = connexin-43 and blue = DNA (nuclei). Scale bar = 20 µm.
Figure 28 shows a nice alignment of the cardiomyocytes along the micropatterns of the
membrane, as well as the presence of connexin-43 proteins, as expected. Not all connexin-43
proteins can be seen on this figure as they were on different planes and that the deconvolution of
several images taken at different planes could not be performed. Despite the presence of a few
gaps and some other cell types, most probably fibroblasts, the culture looks confluent and the
majority of the cells are cardiomyocytes. The few rounded cells are dead cardiomyocytes. Figure
29 shows a few cardiomyocytes in details. They are aligned and carry connexin-43 proteins on
their surface, as expected. Gap junctions between cardiomyocytes from one microgroove to
another (*) and from cells aligned in the same groove (**) can be clearly seen, which indicates
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