Fig. 2

Pericyte transition into fibroblasts after SCI. a–d Representative immunofluorescence images taken in the spinal cords of uninjured mice and injured mice at 3, 7, 14, and 28 days post-injury (dpi) showing that fibrotic scarring PDGFRβ⁺ fibroblasts (red) lose the expression of the pericyte marker NG2 (green, a and b) but robustly express the fibroblast markers FSP1 (green, c) and vimentin (green, d) after SCI. The nuclei are stained with DAPI (blue). The high magnification z-stack images of the dotted area in a are shown below as the region of interest in b. e Quantification of the percentage of NG2⁺PDGFRβ⁺ cells out of the total PDGFRβ⁺ cells in the lesion core. f, g Quantification of the percentage of FSP1⁺ area (f) and vimentin⁺ area (g). The asterisks indicate the lesion core. Data are shown as mean ± s.e.m. n = 4 mice per time point. Scale bars: 100 μm (a) and 10 μm (b–d). All images are from sagittal sections. NS, no significance; *p < 0.05, ***p < 0.001 by one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post hoc test in e, f. 3, 7, 14, and 28 dpi versus 0 dpi in e