Sophie Piesse: The beauty in hypertension

Post-menopausal women are a high-risk group for developing hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Fluorescent staining of transverse heart sections from aging female spontaneously hypertensive rats helped to illuminate the lack of effective anti-hypertensive treatments in this cohort. Wheat germ agglutinin labels the cell membrane green, phalloidin labels F-actin of the cytoskeleton red, and DAPI labels nuclei blue. Forming a kaleidoscope of cardiomyocytes, the three colours swirl together as cell orientation changes. Effective hypertension treatment in post-menopausal women remains elusive, but at least perivascular fibrosis looks good in green. 

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