Furthermore, histomorphological assessment of plaques from the Athero-Express study cohort, encompassing parameters such as macrophage content, SMC content, collagen content, and calcification, revealed a suggestive trend towards heightened CCN2 expression in plaques exhibiting elevated levels of ACTA2 + SMC content ( P = 0.06), albeit not with other parameters ( Figure 7 E ).
Although we observed a tendency towards increased permeability at both anatomical sites, this effect did not reach statistical significance ( Figure 6 H ), and we did not observe differential expression of genes associated with endothelial tight junctions (see supplementary material online , Figure S10A ).
Although these transcripts were only nominally significant in the microarray analysis, their regulation was confirmed in vivo by qPCR using aortas from Ccn2 Δ/Δ and Ccn2 fl/fl mice ( Figure 2 I ).