Fig. 2: Anatomy of vagal sensory neurons in the heart.
From: Vagal blood volume receptors compensate for haemorrhage and posture change
a, Representative whole-mount images of tdTomato immunofluorescence in the heart (left, dorsal view; right, ventral view) of a Vglut2-ires-cre mouse injected with AAV-flex-tdTomato in the vagal ganglia. Scale bar, 1 mm. LA, left atrium; RA, right atrium. b, Representative confocal images (maximum-intensity projection, two replicates) of a heart from a showing flower-spray terminals (top) and end-net endings (bottom). Scale bars, 200 μm. c, Uniform manifold approximation and projection (UMAP) plots depicting expression (natural log scale) of Piezo2 (top) and Npy2r (bottom) across a previously published vagal/glossopharyngeal cell atlas16. d, Representative confocal images (maximum-intensity projection) of a heart from a Piezo2-ires-cre mouse (top, from eight replicates) or Npy2r-ires-cre mouse (bottom, from six replicates) injected with AAV-flex-tdTomato (magenta) and a Cre-independent AAV-eGFP (green) in the vagal ganglia. Scale bars, 200 μm. e, Quantification of the relative distribution of terminal types observed in each Cre line. Data are mean ± s.e.m. n = 6 (NPY2R) and 9 (PIEZO2) mice. Each dot represents cumulative data from one mouse involving both intact atria and a 1 mm ventricle section. f, Piezo2-ires-cre and Npy2r-ires-cre mice were injected bilaterally in the vagal ganglia with DT (vagalABLATE) or PBS (control) and the BP recovery was quantified after upright rotation across conditions. Data are mean ± s.e.m. The individual circles show the average response of one mouse over at least three trials. From left to right, n = 8, 4, 5 and 6 mice. Statistical analysis was performed using a two-sided Mann–Whitney U-test; **P = 0.004.
