Blood-Brain Barrier Breakdown after Embolic Stroke in Rats Occurs without Ultrastructural Evidence for Disrupting Tight Junctions
Figure 6
Evidence for leakage across structurally altered endothelium.
In addition to the observation of a dramatic increase of the vesicle density, we often observed a disintegration of the whole endothelial layer. In areas exhibiting BBB breakdown the cellular surface of the endothelium was frequently found to be ruffled or discontinuous. Therefore, the vascular wall was often shown to consist of endothelial debris and basement membranes, only (brackets). Thus, in contradiction to a variety of studies our data strongly suggest a transendothelial leakage pattern of affected vessels. DAB grains indicating extravasation of FITC-albumin are demarked by arrow heads. E = endothelial cells; L = vascular lumen; asterisk = cellular debris in the lumen of the vessel; arrow heads = DAB grains; arrow = tight junction.