Fig. 4

Histological analysis of cardiac fibrosis in mouse diabetes model experiments. A-B. Representative photomicrographs of cardiac tissue sections stained with Masson’s trichrome illustrating interstitial and perivascular fibrosis in three groups of animals each from diabetes model experiments of 10 weeks (A) and 18 weeks (B) duration. Scale bar = 20 μm. Magnification, 200×. C-D. Graphs of quantitative image analyses of interstitial fibrosis (C, CVF %) and perivascular fibrosis (D, PVCA/LA %) performed of Masson’s trichrome-stained cardiac tissue sections from the same experimental groups. Results presented as mean ± SD. Statistical analysis was performed by 2-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with adjustment for multiple comparisons. *:P < 0.05; **:P < 0.01; ***:P < 0.001; ****:P < 0.0001. Abbreviations: Non-DM = non-diabetic group; DM = diabetes mellitus with injection of saline; DM + MSC = diabetes mellitus with injection of hUC-MSCs; CVF (%) = collagen volume fraction; PVCA/LA (%) = perivascular collagen volume/luminal area