Fig. 2

Immunohistochemical and biochemical characterization of purified vascular fractions from rat brain. a-b Isolated brain vascular fractions from a 3 month-old non-blast exposed rat is shown stained with Griffonia simplicifolia isolectin B4 (red). Nuclei were counterstained with DAPI (blue). a Muscular artery (indicated by an arrow) gives rise to a medium-sized vessel (indicated by an arrowhead). b Medium-and small-sized vessels and microvessels. Scale bar, 50 μm. c Immunoblots of total brain homogenates and vascular-enriched preparations are shown blotted with antibodies against endothelial (laminin, occludin, VE-cadherin), vascular smooth muscle (α-SMA), and pericyte (PDGFRβ) markers. All lanes were loaded with 10 μg of protein. Fold-enrichments in the vascular preparations vs. the whole brain homogenates are indicated on the right. Note enrichment of all the markers tested in the brain vascular fractions