Figure 1.

The healthy and cancer-disrupted neurovascular unit: Immunofluorescently labeled elements of (a) the healthy neurovascular unit in a tissue section from a murine brain showing GFAP labeled astrocytes (green channel), DAPI labeled cell nuclei (blue channel), and autofluorescing erythrocytes or RBCs (red channel). The dense vascular coverage of the astrocytes is immediately apparent as is the intimate contact between the astrocytic endfeet and neurovascular endothelium. (b) Disrupted neurovascular unit in a 9L brain tumor bearing murine brain section, wherein one can not only see a dearth of astrocytic coverage (green channel) of the tumor vessels (dextran-TRITC label in red channel) but also displaced astrocytic endfeet. All images were acquired at 20× magnification.