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Fig. 2 | Fluids and Barriers of the CNS

Fig. 2

From: Modeling blood–brain barrier pathology in cerebrovascular disease in vitro: current and future paradigms

Fig. 2

Blood brain barrier (BBB) and neurovascular unit. a Schematic representation of cellular structure of BBB/NVU. b Brain endothelial cells have a wide range of transporters and carriers that build BBB influx (blood–brain) and BBB efflux (brain-blood) systems. c The BBB-endowed brain endothelial cells are characterized by a junctional complex that completely occludes the paracellular space and restricts paracellular movement from blood to brain. The junctional complex is composed from tight junctions (TJ), adherens junctions (AdJ) and gap junctions (GJ). These structures are generated by a complex network of protein–protein interactions between transmembrane proteins (e.g. claudin-5, occludin, junctional adhesion molecules [JAM], Ve-cadherin and Cx43) with scaffolding proteins (i.e. ZO-1) and the actin cytoskeletons

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Fluids and Barriers of the CNS

ISSN: 2045-8118