Fig. 3

Cellular distribution of Cx40 and Cx43 in peripheral blood lymphocytes from Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats and spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs). a – Representative immunofluorescence staining of Cx40 (red) and Hoechst (blue) in peripheral blood lymphocytes from WKY rats and SHRs (magnification 630×; scale bar = 16 μm). Lymphocytes were double labeled, as described in the Materials and Methods section, with anti-Cx40 plus rhodamine-labeled secondary antibodies. b – Representative immunofluorescence staining of Cx43 (green) and Hoechst (blue) in peripheral blood lymphocytes from WKY rats and SHRs (magnification 630×; scale bar = 16 μm). Lymphocytes were double labeled with anti-Cx43 plus FITC-labelled secondary antibodies. The bar graphs in A and B chart the mean fluorescence intensities of accumulated Cx40 and Cx43 in the 50 permeabilized peripheral blood lymphocytes on ∼25 fields from different WKY rats and SHRs (n = 5). Each column represents the mean ± SEM of three independent experiments. *p < 0.05 and **p < 0.01, compared with the WKY rats