Fig. 5

Reduced GFAP and fewer astroglial attachments in isolated brain vascular fractions following low-energy blast exposure. a Immunoblotting for GFAP (top panel) from five control and five blast-derived brain vascular fractions. Quantification of the blot with expression normalized to GAPDH (lower panel) is shown on the right. All lanes were loaded with 10 μg of protein and contain protein from individual animals. ** indicates p < 0.01 (unpaired t-test). b-c Isolated vascular fractions from control (b) and blast-exposed brains (c) were immunostained for GFAP (red) and laminin (green) and counterstained with DAPI (blue). Arrows indicate GFAP-immunostained attachments to the isolated vasculature. Note the reduced number of GFAP-labeled attachments in the blast-exposed vessels (c). All animals were euthanized 6 weeks after blast exposure. Scale bar, 25 μm