Fig. 1

High and low FSS lead to differential adaption of ECs and changes in BMP receptor expression. A Confocal images of VE-Cadherin staining. Insets show magnified regions. B Confocal images of Actin fiber staining by phalloidin. Insets show magnified regions. Polar plot of normalized power intensity that plots the mean actin fiber orientation (red line) using an elliptical best fit. Arrows in A and B indicate the direction of flow application. Scale bars 2 μM. C Heatmap of selected marker genes from RNAseq data set. All selected genes are differentially expressed (adjusted p-value < 0.05, fold change >1.5) between LSS and HSS. D Expression of BMP receptors and co-receptors from RNAseq data, independent of their adjusted p-value or fold change. Color-coding for C and D shows z-scores (red = high, blue = low). E Immunoblot using antibodies specific against Endoglin (upper panel). Densiometric quantification of Endoglin expression relative to GAPDH (lower panel). Data is presented as mean ± SD from 6 independent experiments. Expression was normalized to statical control. Statistical significance was calculated by unpaired, two-sided Student’s T-test, *p < 0.05