Table 1.
Age of all cardiac specimens that were studied.
Figure 1.
Spatiotemporal organization of N-cadherin.
Double labeling of N-cadherin (green) and α-actinin (red) at different stages of cardiac development. Age of the specimen is indicated in the left lower corner of the panels. Scale bar indicates 20 µm.
Figure 2.
Spatiotemporal organization of desmosomal proteins.
During all development stages the desmosomal proteins desmoplakin, plakoglobin and plakophilin-2 (green) colocalize with N-cadherin (red). The plakoglobin signals revealed besides a colocalization with N-cadherin at the IDs also a staining of the capillaries (arrows) between the myocytes. Scale bar indicates 20 µm.
Figure 3.
Colocalization of N-cadherin with Cx43.
Immunofluorescence of tissue at different stages of cardiac development double-labeled with N-cadherin (red) and Cx43 (green). Scale bar indicates 20 µm.
Figure 4.
Spatiotemporal movement of Cx43 towards the intercalated disc.
Double labeling of Cx43 (green) and α-actinin (red) at different stages of cardiac development. Cx43 (green) Cx43 moves from the lateral side of the myocytes towards the IDs. Arrows indicate less intense ID staining of Cx43 at the age of 5 years when compared to the intensity of lateral signals. Scale bar indicates 40 µm.
Figure 5.
Spatiotemporal movement of Nav1.5 towards the intercalated disc.
Delayed movement of Nav1.5 towards the ID compared to N-cadherin. Until the age of about 1 year ID labeling of Nav1.5 is accompanied by lateral labeling (arrows). Stars indicate low abundant N-cadherin signals at these sites. Scale bar indicates 20 µm.
Figure 6.
Cartoon showing a schematic summary of developmental changes in subcellular immunolocalization of N-cadherin (left, blue), Nav1.5 (middle, red) and Cx43 (right, green). Black rectangles represent a cardiomyocyte. As pointed out, immunolocalization in cardiomyocytes of plakophilin-2, desmoplakin and plakoglobin is exactly similar to that of N-cadherin at all timepoints.