Figure 1.

Podoplanin is expressed in the mouse brain. (a) qPCR examinations in adult (8–10 weeks old) wild-type mouse tissues (n = 3 animals) indicated a salient presence of podoplanin in the brain. Transcription levels from triplicate experiments were normalized to values obtained from podoplanin in the heart, for descriptive proposes, as indicated by an asterisk. He = heart, Lu = lung, Li = liver, Sp = spleen, Ki = kidney, AT = adipose tissue, SM = skeletal muscle, Th = thymus, Pr = prostate, Br = total brain. (b) In a different experiment, qPCR analysis further verified the presence of podoplanin mRNAs in different areas across the brain relative to the hippocampus of 8–10 weeks old wild-type mice (n = 3). (c) Immunohistochemical staining of brain sections obtained from adult wild type mice showed a clear signal for podoplanin (upper) and no signal in negative controls where primary antibody was omitted (lower). Objective magnifications -from left to right- are 4×, 20×, 20×, and 40× for upper and lower pictures. Consistent results were found when the podoplanin antibody was used on brain sections obtained from the podoplanin knock out (Pdpn−/−) mice (lower pictures). (d) Western blot assay exclusively using hippocampal tissue from wild-type mice corroborated the expression of podoplanin. No signal was detected in hippocampal tissue from podoplanin−/− mice (right). Histograms data are displayed as mean ± SEM.