Muscularization of small pulmonary arteries.

<p><b>A</b>: Representative images of α-SMA immunostaining of non-muscular (NM), partially muscularized (PM) <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0032468#pone.0032468-McCormack1" target="_blank">[53]</a>, and fully muscularized (FM) small arterioles used to determine percent muscularization of vessels after HDM exposure (40×). <b>B</b>: WT and Bmpr2 ΔE2 (ΔE2) mice demonstrated increases in the number of arterioles that were fully muscularized (FM) and fewer arterioles that were non-muscular (NM) compared to saline controls after 7 weeks (wk) HDM (left). The percentage of FM arterioles was further enhanced after 20 weeks of HDM and the proportion of NM arterioles was further reduced. No differences were detected between groups of WT and Bmpr2 ΔE2 mice exposed to saline or HDM (n = 5–13 mice/group). *P<0.05 vs saline control, ∧P<0.05 vs ΔE2 saline PM.