Figure 6.

Deletion of Kitl After Birth Did Not Affect Osteogenesis

(A and B) Representative confocal images of femur sections from Lepr^cre; R26^tdTomato; Kitl^GFP mice at E19.5 (A) or 2 months of age (B). Bone marrow vessels were revealed by anti-ENDOGLIN staining (n = 3 mice/age from three independent experiments).

(C) Representative flow cytometry plots of enzymatically dissociated bone marrow cells from 2-month-old Lepr^cre; R26^tdTomato; Kitl^GFP mice showed that most TOMATO⁺ cells were GFP⁺ and vice versa (n = 3 mice from three independent experiments).

(D and E) Representative microCT images showed trabecular bone (D) and cortical bone (E) from Kitl^fl/fl and Lepr^cre; Kitl^fl/fl mice (n = 5 mice per genotype from three independent experiments).

(F–L) MicroCT analyses of the trabecular bone volume/total bone volume (F), trabecular number (G), spacing (H), thickness (I), cortical area (J), cortical area/total area (K), and thickness (L) of femurs from Kitl^fl/fl and Lepr^cre; Kitl^fl/fl mice (n = 5 mice per genotype from three independent experiments).

(M) Frequencies of CD45⁻TER119⁻CD31⁻PDGFRα⁺ bone marrow stromal cells in Kitl^fl/fl and Lepr^cre; Kitl^fl/fl mice (n = 5 mice per genotype from three independent experiments). Two-tailed Student's t tests were used to assess the statistical significance of differences between sex-matched littermates in (F–M).