Fig. 1

NO-GC expression in the murine lung. Lungs from WT mice (A–F) were stained with antibodies against the β₁ subunit of NO-GC (NO-GCβ₁) and desmin, PDGFRβ, CD31 or αSMA, respectively. Arrowheads in the merged images indicate cells which co-express NO-GC (red) with two established pericyte markers desmin (85.59% ± 2.41%; green, A; enlargement in B; desmin⁺/NO-GC⁻ cell indicated by arrow) and PDGFRβ (99.35% ± 0.65%; green, C; enlargement in D). E Signals for NO-GCβ₁ (red) and CD31 (green) as marker for endothelial cells show close proximity but both markers are not co-expressed by the respective cells (arrowheads indicate NO-GC⁺/CD31⁻ cells which are in direct neighborhood to NO-GC⁻/CD31⁺ endothelial cells). F Co-expression of αSMA (green) and NO-GCβ₁ (red) in blood vessels of the healthy lung indicates NO-GC expression in vascular smooth muscle cells (arrowheads). DAPI was used to stain nuclei (blue). For the quantitative analyses of the co-expression, a total of 773 (desmin) or 775 (PDGFRβ) DAPI⁺ cells were counted from n = 9 images (63 × magnification) from N = 3 animals. Single channels are shown in a2–f2 and a3–f3. G, H Pericyte-specific scRNA expression of NO-GCβ₁ subunit (Gucy1b1) and PDGFRβ in adult murine lung (http://betsholtzlab.org/VascularSingleCells/database.html; [18], and www.LungEndothelialCellAtlas.com; [19]). AEC alveolar epithelial cells, FB vascular fibroblast-like cells, CP cartilage perichondrium, PC pericytes, VSMC vascular smooth muscle cells, EC endothelial cells