(a) K14-CreER and K14-CreER;Yapfl/fl;Tazfl/+ mice were treated with tamoxifen to activate Cre in the skin basal layer; after two weeks, mice received a single DMBA administration, followed by repeated TPA treatments for 40 weeks. Left: representative picture of control (K14-CreER) and YAP/TAZ deficient mice at time of harvesting (40 weeks after the beginning of the experiment). Right: time course of tumor development in mice with the indicated genotypes (data are mean+SD, n=9 for both experimental groups). See Supplementary Figure 6d for the verification of Cre-mediated recombination of YAP and TAZ alleles.
(b) Representative H&E -stained sections of tumors from control mice, or ostensibly normal skin from DMBA/TPA-treated YAP/TAZ conditional knockout mice. Lesions developed by control mice are characterized by skin folds integrated by a core of connective tissue and lined by an hyperplastic, hyperkeratotic, stratified squamous epithelium; some foci of squamous cell carcinoma were also observed (see Supplementary Fig. 6e). Magnification is the same for all pictures. Scale bar is 1mm.
See Methods for reproducibility of experiments.