Fig. 7

Cerebral amyloid angiopathy detected in the degu brain. a–f Immunofluorescence confocal microscopic images show dual immunofluorescence of smooth muscle a-actin (SMA, green), a molecular marker for small arteries and Aβ40 (red) and degu brains. Arrowheads indicate no Aβ40 in SMA-positive vessels a non-AD degu brain slice (a–c) when images merged with DAPI, which stains cell nuclei as blue, while arrows indicate SMA-stained vessels are associated with Aβ40 in non-AD and AD-like (d–f) degu brains. (g–i) A zoom-in view generated from a maximum intensity projection of Z-stack slices shows two SMA-stained vessels (green in g) enclosing Aβ40-positive deposits in the vascular wall (red in h) in merged images combined with DAPI (blue). Note: there is no autofluorescent bleed-through between the red and green channels, suggesting signal in each channel is specific. j–o Additional confocal microscopic images show partial colocalization of mOC23 (j) and Aβ42 (k) in o, arrow-pointed yellow parts) in hippocampus (Hip), and a spatial association of 6E10-stained deposits (green in m) and mOC31-positive vascular specific Aβ (red in n) in merged images o with DAPI (blue) in thalamus (Th) area. (p) Quantification is depicted as the percentage of both Aβ40- and SMA-positive vessels over all SMA-positive vascular structures in a 1.69 mm2 ROI’s (a 10x confocal image) and three non-overlapped ROI for each anatomical area were examined