Heterogeneous Cardiac-Derived and Neural Crest-Derived Aortic Smooth Muscle Cells Exhibit Similar Transcriptional Changes After TGFβ Signaling Disruption

CONCLUSIONS: There are multiple subtypes of cardiac-derived and neural crest-derived SMCs with shared or distinctive transcriptional profiles; neural crest subset cluster SMCs with increased expression of certain TGFβ-inducible genes are not spatially linked to the aortic root predisposed to aneurysms from aberrant TGFβ signaling; and loss of TGFβ responses after receptor deletion is uniform among SMC clusters.