Important impetus for the current study was 1) prior work demonstrating that YAP/TAZ activity declines with increasing age (24), 2) our own studies showing that conditional knockout of YAP and TAZ in arterial SMCs results in aneurysm formation with depletion of MYOCD (11, 15), and 3) the prior finding that MYOCD KO in SMCs leads to aortic aneurysms with dissection (23). Here, MYOCD is linked to aortic aneurysm.