Fig. 1

Sketch of the association between resident macrophage and cardiomyocytes in the heart. Cardiomyocytes are aligned longitudinally in the heart (a) with actin-myosin apparatus and carry contraction controlled by CICR (b). Resident macrophages are naturalized in cardiac tissue (c). Through connexin 43 and other integrated and extracellular matrix proteins, resident macrophages facilitate conducting cardiomyocytes and modify the action potential of cardiomyocytes (d)