Fig. 2

Establishment of paxillin smooth muscle-specific knockout mice. a, Representative western blot of paxillin expression in heart muscle, straited muscle layer of esophagus, and the medial smooth muscle layer of thoracic aorta, from control mice (Cont) and paxillin smooth muscle knockout (SMKO) mice (PXN CKO). Note that we removed the endothelial layer and connective tissue, leaving only the medial smooth muscle layer of thoracic aorta. GAPDH is shown as a loading control. b, Immunofluorescent staining showing that paxillin is knockout in the medial smooth muscle layer of thoracic aorta of paxillin SMKO mice. α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA, red) as a smooth muscle-specific marker is detected in both control mice (Cont) and paxillin SMKO mice (PXN CKO). Paxillin (Green) is detected in the medial smooth muscle layer of control mice (Cont) but not in that of paxillin SMKO mice (PXN CKO), as shown in the yellow arrow. Scale Bar = 100 µm in 10× images, Scale Bar = 20 µm in 40× images