Fig. 3

Commensals activate endothelial cells and promote intestinal angiogenesis. A Volcano plot showing fold change of gene expression in colonic endothelial cells of GF and SPF mice. Significant differences in gene expression between the two groups (log2-fold change ≥ 1; p-adj < 0.05) are marked in red. B STRING analysis for significantly upregulated transcripts of colonic endothelial cells from SPF mice. C Expression of ICAM1⁺, CD146⁺, and MadCAM1⁺ on colonic endothelial cells in indicated mice. D Relative abundance (RA) of colonic endothelial cells in the LP of indicated mice. E Schematic and microscopic representation of vascular cross connections in the colon. F Representative images and quantification of whole-mount staining indicated in mice. Partial vascularized crypts were quantified by insertion of contour surface modules (gray areas). G Intravital, multiphoton microscopy of small intestinal blood capillaries after i.v. injection of Qtracker™ 655. Vessel areas were quantified with trace image processing for morphometric measurements within a bounding box (BB). Scale bar: 30 μm. Results are representative of 4–5 experiments. Shown are representative data of at least two independent experiments with means ± SD; each symbol represents the individual value for one mouse (C-I). One-way ANOVA was used: ****p < 0.0001; **p ≤ 0.01; *p ≤ 0.05; ns, not significant