Endothelial and nonendothelial sources of PDGF-B regulate pericyte recruitment and influence vascular pattern formation in tumors
J. Clin. Invest. Alexandra Abramsson, et al. 112:1142 doi:10.1172/JCI18549 [Go to this article.]

Figure 1
Reduced pericyte recruitment and dilated vessels in tumors transplanted into pdgf-b^ret/ret mice. Double staining of endothelium (Pecam-1, red) and pericytes/VSMCs (SMA or NG2, green) in the vasculature of tumors and surrounding normal tissue of WT and pdgf-b^ret/ret mice. Recruitment of pericytes to tumor vessels was higher in WT (a) than in pdgf-b^ret/ret mice (b), and vessels in tumors grown on pdgf-b^ret/ret mice were morphologically abnormal and significantly dilated. Vessels in the surrounding dermal tissue show continuous coverage and circular arrangement of mural cells in both WT (c) and pdgf-b^ret/ret mice (d). NG2 staining of the pericytes demonstrated their close association with the endothelium in tumors in WT mice (e), whereas they were partially or completely detached from the tumor endothelium in pdgf-b^ret/ret mice (f and g, arrows). Bars: 50 μm.