Fig. 1: miRNA expression in biofluids and aortic tissue of AAA model mice.

A Volcano plot of differentially regulated miRNAs in patients (n = 187) compared to controls (n = 190) from the SMART cohort. Points above fold-change and FDR cut-off in gray are not conserved in mouse. B Table of top differentially regulated miRNAs in (A). Cons = conserved in mouse. C Quantile normalized Ct values (Ct_qn) of miR-15a in SMART control patients (n = 92), AAA patients (n = 120), AAA with diameter smaller or equal to 50 mm (n = 63), AAA with diameter bigger than 50 mm (n = 57). D Left: Expression of miR-15a in plasma of AngII model mice (AAA; n = 13) and saline controls (Ctrl; n = 8). Right: Expression of miR-15a in plasma of AngII model mice whose aortas were either ruptured/dissected (R; n = 5) or non-ruptured/non-dissected (NR; n = 8). Corresponding data for miR-192 can be found in Supplementary Fig. 1C. E Expression of miR-15a in plasma of PPE model mice sacrificed before PPE aneurysm induction (Ctrl; n = 7) or at different timepoints (Week 1, n = 5; Week 4, n = 8; Week 8, n = 4) post PPE aneurysm induction. F Left: Progression of PPE model relative AAA diameter (AAd) as measured by ultrasound. Right: Correlation between relative AAd and plasma miR-15a upon sacrifice at 4 weeks. Colors correspond to time intervals as defined in the left panel. G Fluorescent in situ hybridization of miR-15a (red; Alexa647), immunofluorescence of α-SMA (SMA; green; Alexa555), fluorescently stained nuclei (DAPI) in mouse aortic tissue from the PPE model. The right-side box shows magnification of aortic wall with visible colocalization of medial α-SMA with miR-15a. Scale bars are 500 µm (left), 200 µm (middle), 500 µm (right). Limited unspecific hybridization can be seen in the adventitial layer, consistent with scrambled control probe hybridization shown in Supplementary Fig. 1D. L = artery lumen. Data points are presented as Mean ± SEM. Differences between means were analyzed using unpaired Student’s t test. p values in A were controlled for false discovery rate (FDR) using Benjamini–Hochberg correction. For analysis of correlation Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was calculated. AAA aortic abdominal aneurysm.