Figure 4
From: Hypoxia induced the differentiation of Tbx18-positive epicardial cells to CoSMCs
Tbx18-positive epicardial cells differentiated into CoSMCs and hypoxia led to the premature differentiation of Tbx18-positive epicardial cells to CoSMCs in vivo.
(A,B) Analysis of the differentiation of Tbx18-positive epicardial cells to CoSMCs by double immunofluorescence for YFP (green) and markers of CoSMCs (red, α-SMA and myh11) in E16.5 and neonatal heart sections from Tbx18:Cre/R26REYFP mice. Nuclei were co-stained with DAPI. Scale bar is 50 μm. (C) β-gal staining of E18.5 heart sections from Tbx18:Cre/R26RLacz mice showed that Tbx18 was expressed in a subset of CoSMCs. Scale bar is 100 μm. Rectangles in the upper right corners of panels (A,B) represent the high-magnification views of the areas indicated by arrows. (D) Hypoxia intervention for 24 h resulted in the premature expression of CoSMCs markers in the epicardium, which merged with YFP fluorescence in E14.5 Tbx18:Cre/R26REYFP hearts. Scale bar is 50 μm. (E) CoSMCs markers were not expressed in the epicardium of E14.5 Tbx18:Cre/R26RYFP hearts that developed under normoxia. DAPI staining indicated the nuclei. Arrows indicated CoSMCs marker-positive cells in the E14.5 epicardium of Tbx18:Cre/R26REYFP hearts. Scale bar is 50 μm.
