Figure 6.
Regulators and features of smooth muscle differentiation
(A) Sections of E12.5 Dermo1-Cre/+; Yapfl/fl; mTmG/+ lungs and littermate controls immunostained for GFP and either Yap1, Lef1, Foxp1, or αSMA. Insets show zoomed-in view of the mesenchyme to highlight the decrease in mesenchymal Yap1 levels in mutants. Yap1+ cells in the mesenchyme of mutants are vascular endothelial cells (ve, indicated by white arrowheads), which are not targeted by Dermo1-Cre. ep is epithelium. Scale bars show 50 μm.
(B) Scaled expression of genes involved in cytoskeleton, cell adhesion, and extracellular matrix versus cell loadings along DC1 compared to the expression profiles of the smooth muscle markers Acta2 and Myocd (dotted lines). Pearson correlation coefficients and significance are indicated and lines represent smoothed data with SE shaded in gray.
(C) Simplified pathway diagram depicting the steps of proliferative metabolism and showing relevant enzymes at each step. Enzymes that are significantly downregulated along DC1 are indicated in bold red font, with a significance of spline fit indicated by asterisks. ∗ indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗ indicates p < 0.001, and ∗∗∗ indicates p < 0.0001