Figure 4.

Fibrinogen depletion and inhibition of fibrinolysis in the TgCRND8 mouse have opposite effects on neurovascular damage. (A) Neurovasculature in ancrod-, saline-, and tranexamic acid–treated TgCRND8 mice. Images of brains labeled for PECAM-1 (black) are shown with higher magnification images of the regions shown in red to the right. Regions defining cortex (orange) and hippocampus (blue) were used for quantification of vascular density. The images show decreased vascular density in the cortex (cx) and hippocampus (hp) of plasmin-inhibited transgenic mice, whereas fibrinogen-depleted transgenics show increased vascular density over age-matched saline-treated TgCRND8 mice at 6 mo. (B) Semiquantitative analysis of PECAM-1 staining in the cortex and hippocampus shows decreased vascular density in plasmin-inhibited transgenic mice, whereas fibrinogen-depleted transgenics show an increase. Bars represent the percentage of image area reported as the mean ± SEM of four images of the cortex and hippocampus of four mice in each treatment group. *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.001, relative to saline-treated mice.