Fig. 5: Perivascular fibroblasts contribute more extensively to white matter scarring, whereas GLAST-expressing pericytes generate fibrotic scar tissue in the gray matter after SCI.

a, SCI lesion model (complete spinal crush at thoracic level 10 (T10)) and experimental timeline used for lineage tracing of GLAST- and Col1a1-expressing perivascular cells. b,c, Distribution of tdTomato⁺EGFP⁺ and tdTomato⁻EGFP⁺ cells in GLAST-CreER^T2 and Col1a1-CreER^T2;R26R-tdTomato;Pdgfrb-eGFP mice at 5 days (b) and 14 days (c) after the complete spinal crush. The Pdgfrb-eGFP reporter line drives EGFP expression in PDGFRβ-expressing perivascular and stromal cells. d, Percentage of PDGFRβ⁺ cells that express tdTomato out of the total PDGFRβ⁺ stromal cells in the lesion core at 5 and 14 days after injury. e, Percentage of tdTomato⁺PDGFRβ⁺ cells out of the total PDGFRβ⁺ stromal cells in gray and white matter regions of the spinal cord at 14 days after injury. f, Lesion model (mild contusion at T9) and experimental timeline used for lineage tracing of GLAST- and Col1a1-expressing perivascular cells. g,h, Distribution of tdTomato⁺EGFP⁺ and tdTomato⁻EGFP⁺ cells in GLAST-CreER^T2 and Col1a1-CreER^T2;R26R-tdTomato;Pdgfrb-eGFP mice at 5 days (g) and 14 days (h) after the mild spinal cord contusion. i, Percentage of PDGFRβ⁺ cells that express tdTomato out of the total PDGFRβ⁺ stromal cells in the lesion core at 5 and 14 days after injury. j, Percentage of tdTomato⁺PDGFRβ⁺ cells out of the total PDGFRβ⁺ stromal cells in gray and white matter regions of the spinal cord at 14 days after injury. All scale bars: 100 µm. Data are shown as mean ± s.d. Crush: GLAST-CreER^T2 n = 3 (5 days) and n = 7 (14 days), Col1a1-CreER^T2 n = 6 (5 days) and n = 5 (14 days) animals in d and n = 7 (GLAST-CreER^T2 14 days) and n = 4 (Col1a1-CreER^T2 14 days) animals in e. Contusion: GLAST-CreER^T2 n = 5 (5 days) and n = 6 (14 days), Col1a1-CreER^T2 n = 4 (5 days) and n = 4 (14 days) animals in i and n = 6 (GLAST-CreER^T2 14 days) and n = 4 (Col1a1-CreER^T2 14 days) animals in j. ***P = 0.0002, ****P < 0.0001 (d), *P = 0.0356, NS (no significance) = 0.1096 (e), ****P < 0.0001 (i), NS = 0.9804, ****P < 0.0001 (j) by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Šídák’s multiple-comparisons test. Dashed lines in b, c, g and h outline the gray matter–white matter border. Cell nuclei are labeled with DAPI. Images are representative of two independent experiments. All images show sagittal sections. Source data are provided as a source data file.

Source data