Revascularization of ischemic tissues by PDGF-CC via effects on endothelial cells and their progenitors
J. Clin. Invest. Xuri Li, et al. 115:118 doi:10.1172/JCI19189 [Go to this article.]

Figure 1
Therapeutic revascularization with PDGF-CC in ischemic heart. (A–C) Immunostaining, revealing low PDGF-Rα expression in a subset of microvessels in an uninjured myocardium (A) and strongly increased PDGF-Rα expression in sprouting vessels in the border region of a myocardial infarct, from where vessels revascularize the infarct (B and C). C shows a detail of PDGF-Rα expression in microvessels (arrows). (D) Upper and middle panels: immunoprecipitation and subsequent Western blotting for PDGF-Rα (upper) and pTyr (middle) showed that PDGF-Rα was upregulated in the ischemic myocardial regions bordering the infarct where vessels start to grow. Note also that PDGF-Rα was activated more in the borders than the normal (nonischemic) regions and maximally after PDGF-CC treatment. Lower panel: Coomassie staining revealing comparable loading. (E and F) PDGF-CC protein treatment increased TM⁺ (E) and SMA⁺ (F) vessel density in the infarcted areas in a dose-dependent manner. *P < 0.05 vs. vehicle. (G–I) TM immunostaining of myocardial vessels, revealing increased vessel densities after PDGF-CC treatment. (J–L) α-SMA immunostaining of myocardial vessels, revealing increased vessel densities after PDGF-CC treatment. Scale bars: 50 μm in A, B, G–L and 20 μm in C.