Fig. 3: Pericyte-derived HGF promotes lung alveolarization.
From: Pericytes are organ-specific regulators of tissue morphogenesis
a Confocal images of P21 lung section showing proSP-C+ AT2 cells (red) and co-staining by c-Met (green). b Tile scan confocal view of RAGE+ AT1 cells (green) in PDGFRβ cell-specific Hgf iPCKO loss-of-function and littermate control lungs. Confocal images of NKX2.1+ alveolar epithelial cells (gray) and LAMP3+ AT2 cells (red) (c), c-Met (green) and LAMP3 (red) co-staining (d), LAMP3+ AT2 cells (green) together with DAPI (blue) (e), LAMP3 (green) and EdU (red) (f), c-Caspase3 (gray) and nuclei (DAPI, blue) (g), RAGE (red) and AQP5 (green) (h) in Hgf iPCKO and littermate control lungs. i–n Graphs showing the percentage of LAMP3 positive cells in total cells (i), the number of proliferative LAMP3+ cells per area (283 × 283 × 22 µm) (j), the percentage of apoptotic cells (k), the percentage of RAGE positive area (l), airspace volume (m), and lung volume measurement (n) in Hgf iPCKO and littermate control lungs. Data represent mean ± s.e.m. (n = 4 (i, k), n = 5 (j, m), n = 6 (l) and n = 9 (n)); P-values, unpaired two-tailed Student t-test. (o-q) Violin plots showing expression of AT2 cell-specific markers (o), proliferation markers in AT2 cells (p), and expression of type 1 and 2 alveolar epithelial cell-specific markers (q) in Hgf iPCKO and control samples (n = 5229 control and 3624 mutant cells; two animals per group); Boxplots in center of violins shows median (white bar), quartiles (box), and the farthest data point within 1.5 * inter-quartile range (whiskers). Confocal images of ICAM2+ pulmonary endothelium (gray) (r) and ERG+ ECs (red) together with PDGFRβ+ pericytes (gray) in P21 Hgf iPCKO and control lungs (s). Graphs showing the ICAM2-stained vascular density based on 3D reconstruction surface images, as shown in (r) (t), ratio of ERG+ EC nuclei to total cells (u), ratio of PDGFRβ+ cells to total cells (v), and ratio of ERG+ cells to PDGFRβ+ cells in P21 Hgf iPCKO and control lungs (w). Data represent mean ± s.e.m. (n = 4 for controls, n = 5 for mutants in t, and n = 4 in u–w); P-values, unpaired two tailed Student t-test. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
