Fig. 2: Pericyte remodeling ensures capillary coverage following pericyte loss.

a Representative example of pericyte remodeling from an adult mouse (4 months old at pre-ablation), showing the area before triple pericyte ablation, and at select time-points after ablation. Arrowheads indicate pericytes targeted for ablation. The lower panels show mural cells only. Insets show magnified view of region with pericyte ablation followed with remodeling of neighboring pericyte processes. Each example is selected from 7 experiments in adult mice. I.v. dye = intravenous dye. b Schematic of capillary coverage by pericytes on each imaging day. c Schematic representation of growth contributed by different pericyte processes over 21 days. Each color represents an individual pericyte process, with location of original terminus of the process as a dashed line. d Plot of added pericyte process length over time from Day 0. Each color corresponds to an individual pericyte process from c. Closed circles mark the day of pericyte-pericyte contact, after which growth stops (dashed lines). PC-PC contact = pericyte–pericyte contact. e–h Representative example from an aged mouse (21 months old at pre-ablation), with same layout as for adult mouse. Each example is selected from 7 experiments in aged mice.