Fig. 8: HBEGF signaling is disrupted in aged MGs.
From: Identification of Meibomian gland stem cell populations and mechanisms of aging
a, b CellChat analysis predicts decreased EGF signaling in aged MGs. c CellChat analysis predicts HBEGF signaling between dermal cells and MG ductular cells (green) at 8 weeks and its absence at 21 months. d Violin plots of snRNA-seq data show decreased percentages of Hbegf-expressing cells in the indicated cell populations in aged MG. e RNAscope shows reduced Hbegf expression levels per cell and fewer acinar basal cells (yellow arrows) and surrounding dermal cells (white arrows) expressing Hbegf in aged MG. f IHC shows that p-ERK1/2 levels are decreased, but total ERK1/2 levels are similar in the acini of aged compared with young MG. White dashed lines in (e) and black dashed lines in (f) outline MG acini. Samples from n = 3 8-week and n = 3 21-month-old male C57BL/6 J mice were used for RNAscope and IHC. Scale bars represent 25 μm.
