Altered pericyte recruitment to cerebral blood vessels in CLEC-2- and podoplanim-deficient mice. (A) Immunostaining of frozen sections of embryonic heads at E11.5 show pericytes (NG2, blue) adhering to the surface of blood vessels (PECAM-1, green) within the Pdpn (Pdpn, red) expressing neuro-epithelium in wild-type (^+/+, includes Pdpn^fl/fl littermates; n = 8), Clec-2^−/− (n = 3), Pdpn^fl/flPGK-Cre (n = 3), and Pdpn^fl/flNes-Cre (n = 3) embryos. White arrowheads in Clec-2^−/− embryos indicate where blood vessels are distended from the surrounding neuro-epithelium. Scale bars, 10 μm. (B) A reduction in the total number of pericytes in association with blood vessels was observed in Clec-2^−/−, Pdpn^fl/flPGK-Cre, and Pdpn^fl/flNes-Cre embryos. For each n = 1, a minimum of 4 different sections with 8 images per section were analyzed. Statistical significance was measured by a 1-way analysis of variance with a Tukey posttest, where *P < .05 and **P < .01. Error bars show means ± standard error of the mean.