Figure 3
Effects of cell type-specific CCN1-deficiency on retinal vessel growth and development. (A) In the targeted CCN1 locus, exons 1 and 2 were flanked by loxP sites. Endothelial- or pericyte-specific promoter-mediated tamoxifen-induced cre excision removed the floxed fragment inactivating the CCN1 gene in the targeted cells. (B) Representative immunofluorescence images of IB4-stained whole retinal mounts of wild-type CCN1+/+ mice and their littermate with either endothelial- or pericyte-specific CCN1 deletion. Vascular parameters were analyzed using the AngioTool Software (b for a, d for c, f for e). The outline of the vasculature is shown in white. The vasculature skeleton representation is shown in red and branching points in green. (C,D) Quantitative analysis of vascular parameters of representative retinas of CCN1+/+ and CCN1 mutant mice. Graphical representations of the changes in vascular surface and lacunarity (i.e., the degree of “gappiness”) are shown. *p < 0.001 and **p < 0.05 (n = 5). (E) Representative immunofluorescence images of dual IB4 (red) and NG2 (green) staining of whole mount retinas of wild-type CCN1+/+ mice and their littermate with either endothelial- or pericyte-specific CCN1 deletion.
