1,721,030 research outputs found

    Corticosteroids and cerebral vessel permeability during embryonic development

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    The effects of cortisol on the development of the blood-brain barrier (b.b.b.) were microscopically investigated in the chick embryo optic tectum using horseradish peroxidase (hrp) as marker of vascular permeability. Hrp was injected intracardially at the 15th and 21st incubation day (i.d.), i.e. 5 and 11 days after the last administration of the drug (10 micrograms/50 microliters saline solution at the 8th and 10th i.d.). This treatment caused damage to the maturation process of the b.b.b. to hrp. The intraneural blood vessel walls were not able to prevent the marker extravasation which was massive at the 15th i.d. and circumscribed to limited perivascular areas at the 21st i.d. A possible pathogenetic mechanism of this phenomenon is discussed

    Immunohistochemical and ultrastructural characterization of cortical plate microvasculature in the human fetus telencephalon

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    The blood-brain barrier (BBB) differentiation was investigated by immunohistochemistry and electron microscopy in the radial microvasculature of the telencephalon cortical plate (CP) of 12- and 18-week human fetuses. The BBB-specific glucose transporter isoform 1 (GLUT1) is expressed in both stages, with a main localization on the ablumenal and lateral plasma membranes of the endothelial cells. The endothelial cells are welded by short junctions with fusion points of the plasma membranes at 12 weeks and by extensive tight junctions at 18 weeks. The basal lamina is discontinuous beneath the endothelium-pericyte layer at 12 weeks and splits into two continuous layers circumscribing the pericytes in the later stage. The expression of laminin, a basal lamina glycoprotein, is continuous already at 12 weeks. The CP microvessels are tightly surrounded by processes of glial cells. Immunodetection of the cytoskeletal filament proteins, vimentin (VIM), and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), demonstrates that at 12 weeks the perivascular glial processes are mostly represented by VIM-stained fibers of the radial glia. At 18 weeks, GFAP-stained radial glia fibers, processes of VIM-stained astroblasts, and GFAP-positive astrocytes also build the perivascular envelopes. The results indicate that the vessel differentiation is already under way in the human CP at the midgestational age and entails the establishment of some barrier devices. The early relationship between perivascular glia coverage formation and endothelial barrier maturation suggests that also immature astroglial cells are involved in the setting up of the BBB

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Expression of P-gp in glioblastoma: What we can learn from brain development

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    P-Glycoprotein (P-gp) is a 170-kDa transmembrane glycoprotein that works as an efflux pump and confers multidrug resistance (MDR) in normal tissues and tumors, including nervous tissues and brain tumors. In the developing telencephalon, the endothelial expression of P-gp, and the subcellular localization of the transporter at the luminal endothelial cell (EC) plasma membrane are early hallmarks of blood-brain barrier (BBB) differentiation and suggest a functional BBB activity that may complement the placental barrier function and the expression of P-gp at the blood-placental interface. In early fetal ages, P-gp has also been immunolocalized on radial glia cells (RGCs), located in the proliferative ventricular zone (VZ) of the dorsal telencephalon and now considered to be neural progenitor cells (NPCs). RG-like NPCs have been found in many regions of the developing brain and have been suggested to give rise to neural stem cells (NSCs) of adult subventricular (SVZ) neuro-genic niches. The P-gp immunosignal, associated with RG-like NPCs during cortical histogenesis, progressively decreases in parallel with the last waves of neuroblast migrations, while ‘outer’ RGCs and the deriving astrocytes do not stain for the efflux transporter. These data suggest that in human glioblastoma (GBM), P-gp expressed by ECs may be a negligible component of tumor MDR. Instead, tumor perivascular astrocytes may dedifferentiate and resume a progenitor-like P-gp activity, becoming MDR cells and contribute, together with perivascular P-gp-expressing glioma stem-like cells (GSCs), to the MDR profile of GBM vessels. In conclusion, the analysis of P-gp immunolocalization during brain development may contribute to identify the multiple cellular sources in the GBM vessels that may be involved in P-gp-mediated chemoresistance and can be responsible for GBM therapy failure and tumor recurrence

    GFAP-immunoreactive perivascular glia in the chick optic tectum.

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    Immunocytochemical staining of the glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) was utilized to characterize the processes of the astrocytes enveloping the vessel wall in the central nervous system. The study was carried out in the mesencephalic lobes of 18 and 20 incubation-day chick embryos and of 20 day chickens. A perivascular GFAP positivity was mainly detectable in the vessel portions running within the tectum white layers, while it was scarce, or absent, in the grey ones. The perivascular GFAP negativity in the tectum cellular layers was not considered result of the absence of astrocytic endfeet since our previous electronmicroscopical studies evidenced an almost complete perivascular astrocytic ring throughout the tectum layers at hatching time. Present data rather suggest that the expression of the GFAP-made intermediate filaments in developing astrocytes might be controlled by the surrounding microenvironment
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