Fig. 4: Expression of leukocyte adhesion receptors and transcripts associated with lymphocyte activation in the Tie2^WT and Tie2^iΔAEc mice.

a, Representative immunofluorescence images of aortic arch from the Tie2^WT and Tie2^iΔAEC mice 8 weeks after Western diet and Pcsk9 overexpression stained for platelet and endothelial cell adhesion molecule 1 (PECAM1; green) and VCAM1 (red) (left). Quantification of the VCAM1/PECAM1 ratio (n = 4 independent Tie2^WT mice and n = 5 independent Tie2^iΔAEC mice) (right). Scale bar, 100 μm. Values show mean ± s.d. Statistical significance was determined using Student’s t-test (two-tailed, unpaired). b, Violin plots of Vcam1, Clu and Fbln5 expression in AECs. Note that after Tie2 deletion, Vcam1 and Clu are upregulated in both parts of the aorta, whereas Fbln5 is significantly upregulated only in the thoracic and abdominal parts. Scale, log-transformed gene expression. Statistical significance was determined using a Wilcoxon rank-sum test. P value adjustment was performed using Bonferroni correction based on the total number of genes in the dataset. c, Representative immunofluorescence images of aortic sections 20 weeks after Western diet and Pcsk9 overexpression stained for PECAM1 (green) and VCAM1 (red). Scale bar, 100 μm. d, Quantification of the VCAM1/PECAM1 ratio (n = 3 independent mice per group). Values show mean ± s.d. Statistical significance was determined using Student’s t-test (two-tailed, unpaired).

Source data