Fig. 3

Association of TGF-β1 expression with fibroblast accumulation and collagen deposition in gastrocnemius of PAD patients. All images are of the gastrocnemius of a representative PAD patient who presented with tissue loss. a Masson Trichrome staining reveals highly fibrotic regions (blue labeling) around myofibers (oval) and microvessels (rectangle), and a region with relatively little fibrosis (circle). b A neighboring 4-micron section was labeled by immunohistochemistry with anti-TE-7 antibody, a fibroblast marker which identified fibroblasts in the same three regions of interest. c High magnification of the rectangular region of interest reveals the extent of fibroblast accumulation with microvessels. d A neighboring section labeled by immunofluorescence for TGF-β1 (green fluorescence) shows the intensity and extent of TGF-β1 labeling of microvessels within the rectangular region of interest. Wheat Germ Agglutinin (WGA; red fluorescence) labeled membranes and was used to delineate myofibers