Fig. 3.

System of vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) subtypes performing their own functions. a Vascular smooth muscle cells could be subdivided into six subpopulations marked with different genes shown by the dot plot. The VSMC subtypes featured a series of correlative marker genes involving a similar expression. b For each subtype, one representative gene was chosen as a potential detection target as follows: Ramp1 for VSMC 1, Vim for VSMC 2, Camk2d for VSMC 3, Malat1 for VSMC 4, Mrc1 for VSMC 5. c The proportion of each VSMC subtype in all smooth muscle cells across different segments is displayed by bar graphs. VSMC 2 showed a declining trend, whereas VSMC 3 and 4 presented with an increasing trend, consistent with the phenomenon across all cell types. d KEGG analysis confirmed the characteristic enriched pathways of the six VSMC subtypes