Hippo deficient cardiac fibroblasts differentiate into osteochondroprogenitors (ST)

We investigated how Hippo-deficient cardiac fibroblasts (CFs) alter their cell state and interact with immune cells during cardiac fibrosis. To study the role of the Hippo pathway in CFs, we conditionally knocked out Lats1/2 specifically in the CFs of mouse hearts (Lats1/2CKO). To test the role of Hippo-deficient CF-induced macrophages, we treated the control and Lats1/2CKO mice with or without CSF1R inhibitor to block macrophage expansion and performed ST. Overall design: Spatial Transcriptomics sequencing (ST) were performed using control and Lats1/2 conditional knockout mouse hearts. Control and Lats1/2 knockout mice were treated with or without vehicle and CSF1R inhibitor. All mice were adult with age of around 10-12 weeks when collected.