Figure 1

Myofibroblast marker expression in rat primary cardiac fibroblasts after >72 hours in culture. (a) Rat cardiac fibroblasts were plated on elastic plates with characteristic elastic moduli of 5 kPa, 10 kPa, and 100 kPa, with the indicated culture medium. Cells plated on conventional polystyrene tissue culture plates (rigid substrate – ranging from 30 to 100 MPa) were used as a comparative control. Protein from unpassaged primary cardiac fibroblasts was harvested ~3 days after plating. Vimentin expression was used as a pan-phenotypic control, and protein expression was normalized to total protein loading. (b) Graphical representation of data in (A). Data shown as the mean ± SD and is representative of n = 3–6 biological replicates. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.005, ****P < 0.001 when compared to cells cultured in F10 medium with 2% FBS on the same substrate.