Fig. 4.

Fig. 4.

PGE2 induced vascular maturation and increased heart rate in zebrafish. (A,B) Gray-scaled images of trunk vasculature of developing zebrafish in both vehicle and PGE2 groups at 96 hpf. Both vehicle and PGE2 groups were microinjected with Texas-Red dextran dye and grown under the same conditions, with vasculature formation captured from 53 hpf to 96 hpf, data presented only for 96 hpf. (C,D) Fluorescence images of trunk vasculature in the vehicle and PGE2 larvae. Vehicle color was considered as a threshold to measure fluorescence of the PGE2 using ImageJ. (E) The chart showing the mean of trunk vascular fluorescence measured for both vehicle (n=9) and PGE2 (n=9) larvae±s.e.m. The PGE2 group showed a significant (*P=0.0001) increase in fluorescence compared to the vehicle group. The PGE2-injected larvae also showed a clear formation of the mature vasculature with dorsal longitudinal anastomosing vessel (DLAV), intersegmental arteries (ISA), dorsal aorta (DA) and posterior cardinal vein (PCV) formation while the vehicle remained premature. (F) The chart shows the mean heart rate of selective embryos from three biological replicates (n=12 for vehicles and n=15 for PGE2)±s.e.m. An unpaired t-test showed a significantly high heart rate in the PGE2 group compared to the vehicle group larvae at 72 hpf, with a two-tailed unpaired t-test, **P=0.0221. Video data for non-injected presented in Movie 3A, vehicle injected in Movie 3B and PGE2 injected in Movie 3C. Scale bar: 10 μm.