After birth, tissues grow until they reach adult size, with each organ exhibiting unique cellular dynamics, growth patterns, and stem or non-stem cell sources. Using multiscale experimental and computational approaches, we found that aortic enlargement follows distinct growth principles, scaling with the vertebral column. Expansion proceeds via two temporally coordinated, spatially stochastic waves of proliferation aligned with blood flow, each with unique cell-cycle kinetics, with the first wave featuring cycles as short as 6 h. Single-cell RNA sequencing revealed increased fatty acid metabolism accompanying cell enlargement. Mathematical modeling and experiments showed that endothelial cell extrusion is essential for maintaining homeostatic aortic size as it adjusts for proliferation excess. Using a genetic model of achondroplasia, we mechanistically demonstrated that the aorta preserves proper scaling by increasing cell extrusion while keeping proliferation rates intact. These findings provide a blueprint of the principles orchestrating aortic growth, which relies entirely on the proliferation of resident differentiated cells.

Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.kh18932kp

Data were collected as described in the associated publication.

Sam Brennan and Stuart R. Stock (Northwestern University) collected the microCT data.

Stuart Stock made the measurements of aortic and vertebral lengths.

Stuart Stock curated the data sets.

Description of the data and file structure

microCT scan of mouse spines and aortas filled with contrast agent using a Bruker SkyScan 1272

Files and variables

1) microCT slices and metadata for wild type mice

2) microCT slices and metadata for osx-cre mice. plus and minus denote KO and nonexpressing

This data set consists of 1) microCT slices and 2) their associated meta-data for the Cell Systems paper “Resolving the design principles that control postnatal vascular growth and scaling.” Danielle Pi, Jonas Braun, et al. (in press 2025). The data consist of image sets of the arterial arch and descending aorta and the vertebrae of wild type mice and vertebrae of osx-cre knock-out mice of different ages.

The data are for wild type mice (30 directories) and for cre-osx mice (37 directories). The directories whose names begin with the year “2022” or “2023” are the wild type mice. The other directories are cre-osx; their names begin with “P”.

Each directory contains the data for one specimen. Within each directory, there is a text file and a subdirectory. The text file contains the meta-data for that scan; this contains useful information such as reconstructed volume element (voxel) size which varied between scans of different animals. The subdirectory contains some alignment images and a stack of multiple hundred reconstructed slices which can be in a TIF or BMP format. The alignment images are only useful for the microCT instrument’s reconstruction system and should be ignored. Typically, the author of this record (S.R. Stock) loads the stack of reconstructed slices within a directory into ImageJ using the “Import/Image sequence” command starting at image 10.

The microCT data and associated meta-data are grouped by animal. The naming conventional is “PXX_YY” or “PXX-YY” where XX is the animal age in days (from P5 to P60) and the digits YY give the animal number. Single digits designate males and double digits represent females. The use of dash or underscore is interchangable.

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Other publicly accessible locations of the data:

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Data was derived from the following sources:

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Micro-computed tomography data for: Resolving the design principles that control postnatal vascular growth and scaling

Data files

Abstract

Files and variables

Access information

Micro-computed tomography data for: Resolving the design principles that control postnatal vascular growth and scaling

Data files

Abstract

README: Resolving the design principles that control postnatal vascular growth and scaling

Files and variables

Access information

Works referencing this dataset