Effects of down-regulation of VEGFA and Angiopoietin-2 on vessel pruning. (A) Western blotting showing that VEGFA MO reduces VEGFA expression. (B) RT-PCR analysis showing that Angiopoietin-2 (Ang2) splicing MO induces a shift from wild-type (blue asterisk) to mis-spliced transcripts of Ang2 (red asterisk). (C–E) Projected midbrain vasculature images of 3-dpf Tg(kdrl:eGFP) zebrafish larvae injected with control MO (8 ng; C), VEGFA MO (2 ng; D), and Ang2 MO (1 ng; E). (F) Summary of pruning ratio of midbrain vessel segments. The number on the bar in (F) represents the number of zebrafish larvae examined. Scale, 50 μm in (C–E). n.s., no significance; *** p<0.001 (Student′s t test). Error bars, ± SEM.
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