Cardiomyocyte-specific transgenes rescue sarcoglycan at the membrane and restore membrane-permeability defects. Immunofluorescence microscopy was performed on sections of hearts containing coronary vessels from normal, gsg^–/–, dsg^–/–, gsg^–/–/MHG, and dsg^–/–/MHD mice at 26 weeks of age. In the left column, smooth muscle α-actin (sm actin) staining coronary VSM is shown in green; in the middle column, EBD staining is shown in red and sarcoglycan staining is shown in blue. The third column shows a merged view. (A) δ-Sarcoglycan Ab is present at the membrane of cardiomyocytes of normal and dsg^–/–/MHD hearts but not dsg^–/– hearts. EBD uptake (red) is found in the cardiomyocytes of dsg^–/– animals but is never found in normal or dsg^–/–/MHD cardiomyocytes. δ-Sarcoglycan is normally expressed in coronary arteries. Transgene expression in dsg^–/–/MHD does not induce δ-sarcoglycan expression in the coronary artery tree (bottom row). (B) γ-Sarcoglycan Ab localizes γ-sarcoglycan in the membrane of normal and gsg^–/–/MHG cardiomyocytes. EBD uptake (red) is seen in gsg^–/– cardiomyocytes but is never seen in gsg^–/–/MHG or normal cardiomyocytes. Scale bars: dsg^–/– and gsg^–/– are 100 μm; others are 20 μm.