I prefer the sirius red staining & immunohistochemistry for type I collagen. Also analysis of protein expression by western blot and/or mRNA levels by qRTPCR can be explored to improve the study.

Interesting article

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

I and my collaborators tried type I collagen in the past, but we thought that collagen III correlated best based on our review of the literature and initial staining in our laboratory. We also tried creating a "cocktail" of collagen I and III antibodies for immunohistochemistry, but that didn't seem to add much either. Therefore, our immunohistochemistry of choice right now is collagen III.

As an anatomic pathologist, the molecular methods (western blot or PCR) seem likely they would be great in providing precise measures of fibrosis-related molecules; but a disadvantage to me is that they don't provide a simultaneous view of the morphology.

Again, I appreciate your thoughts!