Figure 2

Immune complexes in basement membranes in the walls of cerebral capillaries and arteries. Active immunization with OVA was followed by intracerebral challenge with OVA and left in situ for (a) 5 mins, (b-d) 24 hours and (e) 7 days. (a) At 5 mins, complement C3 (green) is diffusely in the vicinity of blood vessels stained for laminin (red); there is no co-localization of complement and laminin. (b) At 24 hours, IgG (red) is seen distributed diffusely in the perivascular brain parenchyma and is co-localized (yellow) with complement C3 (green) in brain parenchyma. (c) At 24 hours after injection of antigen, a longitudinal section of an artery in the striatum shows co-localization (yellow) of complement (green) with laminin (red) in the basement membranes surrounding smooth muscle cells in the tunica media. (d) IgG (red) is present in the brain parenchyma and co-localizes (yellow) with laminin (green) in a blood vessel wall at 24 hours. (e) At 7 days, complement C3 (green) is distributed circumferentially around blood vessels (red=laminin). Some co-localization of complement C3 and laminin (yellow) is still seen in the blood vessel walls. Confocal images: co-localization appears as a yellow colour. Scale bars = 60 μm.