Figure 5

Reduced laminin expression around small blood vessels in the striatum of GA-injected animals. (A) Representative images of brain sections at the striatal level showing laminin immunoreactivity that delineates blood vessel profiles (white arrows) in control animals. In GA-injected animals laminin expression seemed unaffected at 14 DPI but an important reduction was found at 30 DPI, together with a simultaneous increased expression of cytoplasmic laminin staining in neuronal-like cells (arrowheads). (B) Quantitation of the laminin-positive area surrounding manually-delimited blood vessels <10 μm in diameter showed a statistically-significant decrease at 30 DPI in GA-injected animals. Data represented is the percentage of respective controls. (C) High magnification images of ZO-1 immunoreactivity in striatal vessels of vehicle- and GA-injected animals at 30 DPI evidencing absence of changes in the distribution and intensity of the signal. Scale bars in A: 50 μm and C: 15 μm. (D) Western blotting images (left panel) and quantitation of the endothelial tight junction proteins, occludin and ZO-1 (right panel). β-actin was used as a protein loading control. Data represented are the percentage of areas related to controls that were indicated as 100% in the chart (dashed black line). Neither occludin nor ZO-1 changed its overall expression in the striatal tissue of vehicle and GA-injected animals, at both 14 and 30 DPI.