Atrial epicardial adipose tissue abundantly secretes myeloperoxidase and activates atrial fibroblasts in patients with atrial fibrillation

Figures

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  Fig. 1. a, b. Atrial fibroblast ECM gene expression after exposure of EAT secretome from 11 persistent, 3 paroxysmal, and 6 patients without AF. a COL1A1, collagen type 1, alpha 1. b FN1, fibronectin. Paroxysmal AF patients are coloured in yellow. Bars represent median [IQR]. Results are corrected for batch affect. *p-value: <0.05

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  Fig. 2. a, b. Identified proteins by LC/MS-MS in a. EAT secretome (2460), and b. EAT (2233), from patients with versus without AF. The log-transformed x-axis represent fold-change (FC), y-ax the significance. Dotted vertical lines indicate a 1.2 (FC), and the horizontal lines a p-value of 0.01. Proteins only expressed in patients with or without AF, or those with a FC of 4> are plotted on the cut-off Log2 fold-change of 4/-4 (arrows). Neutrophil proteins are colored red

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  Fig. 3. Gene set enrichment analysis of EAT. Nodes represent biological processes clustered based on protein similarity. Node-size indicates number of proteins annotated to that process. Only nodes with FDRq < 0.1 are presented. Connecting lines indicate protein similarity between two processes of at least 37,5%

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  Fig. 4. Sections of a persistent AF, b future onset AF, and c non-AF patients immunostained against MPO. Left: MPO positive cells show loss of well-defined cell structure, suggestive for neutrophil apoptosis and activation

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  Fig. 5. Percentages MPO of a the total epicardial adipose tissue (EAT), b the subepicardium specifically, c the myocardium. d shows the ratio MPO of EAT to myocardium. AF (persistent n = 10, paroxysmal n = 6), future onset AF (n = 15), and non-AF patients (n = 14) *p-value < 0.05, ** < 0.01, *** < 0.001; bars: median [IQR]

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  Fig. 6. Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in EAT from persistent AF a, paroxysmal AF b, future onset AF c, and non-AF d patients. NET producing neutrophils are those with web-like h3cit + structures that co-localize with MPO. CD31 + staining not shown

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  Fig. 7. Bars represent neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in the EAT area of persistent, paroxysmal, future onset, and non AF patients (n = 5/group). NET counts were normalized to the total EAT area. Only extravascular NETs were counted. *p < 0.05; bars, median [IQR]