FIGURE 1.

Generation of a temporally controlled PDGFRβ⁺ cell ablation model in mice and the impact of PDGFRβ⁺ cell ablation on body weight. (a) Diagram illustrating the generation of a tamoxifen‐inducible and cell type‐specific PDGFRβ⁺ cell ablation model through the crossbreeding of PDGFRβ‐P2A‐CreER ^+/− and Rosa26‐DTA176 ^+/+ transgenic mouse lines. CreER⁺ progeny was used as the PDGFRβ⁺ cell ablation group, and CreER⁻ progeny served as a control group. Both groups received tamoxifen injections depending on their repetitive dosage group. Created by Biorender.com. (b) Schematic of the tamoxifen induction protocol depicting dosage schedules (2X, 3X, and 5X) and subsequent evaluation time points (Day 15 for acute phase and Day 60 for chronic phase). (c) Kaplan–Meier survival analysis of mice subjected to varying tamoxifen dosages, highlighting the survival impact of post‐PDGFRβ⁺ cell ablation over 25 days. Censorship is indicated by tick marks; p values calculated using Log‐rank (Mantel–Cox) test, noted as < 0.0001. Error bars denote 95% confidence intervals. (d–e) Graphs depicting body weight trajectories of control versus pericyte‐ablated mice during the acute (15 days) (d) and chronic (60 days) (e) phases post‐tamoxifen induction. Data are presented as mean ± SEM for n = 10–24 mice per group. Statistical analysis was conducted using two‐way repeated measures ANOVA followed by the Benferroni test, with p < 0.05 considered as significant. No significant differences in body weight were detected between the CreER⁻ control groups treated with 2X, 3X, and 5X tamoxifen; thus, these groups were combined for statistical comparison. In the acute phase (d), significant weight differences were observed in the 3X and 5X CreER⁺ groups compared to controls. In the chronic phase (e), there was a statistically significant difference only between 3X CreER⁺ mice compared to controls. The 2X group does not show a significant difference in both acute and chronic phases of pericyte ablation. Asterisks denote the statistically significant results of posthoc multiple comparisons conducted to assess weight differences at individual time points compared to the CreER⁻ controls. Statistical details are given in Table S3. X = repetitive doses of tamoxifen injection, Tam. = tamoxifen, Dpi = day post‐injection, blue box = Pdgfrβ, brown box = translational stop sequence, blue arrows (†) = loxP sites, red box with “x” = untranslated DTA, red box = translated DTA, yellow box = Cre recombinase fused with estrogen receptor.