Figure 3. EndMT occurs in UUO-induced kidney fibrosis and is inhibited by the conditional deletion of Twist1 or Snai1.

(A) Maximum intensity orthogonal projections of CD31 and αSMA co-immunolabeling of UUO kidneys from the indicated experimental groups and respective quantification of the number of CD31⁺αSMA⁺ double positive cells per visual field (200×). Cre Ctrl, WT and Twist^End–cKO, n = 3 mice; Cre Ctrl, WT and Snail^End–cKO n = 3 mice. Scale bars: 40 μm. Insets: 10 μm. DAPI: nuclei. (B) GSEA enrichment plots of Hallmark gene dataset associated with epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in the kidneys of Twist^End–cKO UUO or Snail^End–cKO UUO compared to WT UUO mice. All groups, n = 3 mice for each group. (C) Heatmap representing the intensity of expression of EndMT-associated Twist and Snail transcriptional target genes in the kidneys of the indicated experimental groups. Columns represent individual mouse kidney samples. All groups, n = 3 mice for each group. (D) Immunolabeling for YFP, CD31 and αSMA of UUO kidneys from the indicated experimental groups. Cdh5^Cre+;EYFP^L/L n = 4 mice, Cdh5^Cre+;Twist^L/L;EYFP^L/+ n = 3 mice, Cdh5^Cre+;Snai1^L/L;EYFP^L/+ n = 4 mice. Scale bars: 100 μm. Data is presented as mean ± s.e.m. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Tukey post-hoc analysis. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001.