Fig. 1: Cardiac-specific knockout of prohibitin 2 (Phb2) leads to dilated cardiomyopathy and heart failure.

a Western blot analysis of PHB2 in the heart tissues from wild type (WT) and Phb2 cardiac-specific knockout (cKO) mice at 6 weeks of age (left). Anti-TIM23 immunoblot is used as the reference. Statistics for western blot (right). n = 6 mice per group. b Kaplan-Meier survival curves for WT and Phb2 cKO mice. n = 14 mice per group. Significance was determined by the Kaplan–Meier survival analysis. **p < 0.01 versus WT group. c HE staining of gross morphology from WT and Phb2 cKO mouse hearts at 8 weeks of age. Scale bar: 1 mm. d Fibrosis of the heart tissues from 8-week-old WT and Phb2 cKO mice was assessed by Masson staining (left). Statistics for fibrotic areas (right). n = 3 independent experiments per group. Scale bar: 1 mm. e Representative echocardiographic images of the left ventricle in WT and Phb2 cKO mouse hearts at 8 weeks of age. n = 6 mice per group. f Echocardiographic analysis of EF (ejection fraction) and FS (fractional shortening). g Echocardiographic statistics of LVID; d (LV internal diameter at end-diastole) and LVID; s (LV internal diameter at end-systole). h Echocardiographic statistics of LV Vol; d (left ventricular volume at end-diastole) and LV Vol; s (left ventricular volume at end-systole). i Echocardiographic statistics of LVPW; d (left ventricular posterior wall at end-diastole) and LVPW; s (left ventricular posterior wall at end-systole). j The ratio of heart weight (HW) to body weight (BW) and heart weight (HW) to tibia length (TL) from 8-week-old WT and Phb2 cKO mice. n = 6 independent experiments per group. All Data represent mean ± SEM. Significance was determined by two-tailed, unpaired Student’s t test. ns: no significance. **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 versus WT group.