Figure 5

Collagen deposition and fiber type switching in the HIV transgenic rat. Histological muscle sections of the gastrocnemius muscle of HIV Tg (n = 6) and control wild type rats (n = 3) were stained using Picrosirius Red for collagen. Representative images are shown in A and B. The scale bar equals 200 μm. A. Tissue section of the gastrocnemius muscle in wild type rat shows collagen deposition in red in intracellular space. B. Tissue section of gastrocnemius muscle from HIV Tg rat shows increased collagen deposition in red in the intracellular spaces. C. Quantification of the area of picrosirius red staining using Image J shows that there is an increase in fibrotic index in the HIV Tg rat compared to the wild type at a significance of P < 0.05. The bar plot indicates mean percent area of collagen with the error bars indicative of the standard deviation. D. Quantification of fiber type was done using Image J on control wild type (n = 4) and HIV Tg (n = 4). The bar plot indicates the percentage of fibers of each type with error bars indicative of standard deviation