Fig. 4.

Tryptase can downregulate the production of tight-junction proteins. Mouse brain microvascular endothelial cells were accordingly pretreated with FS at 400 μM for 30 min and then stimulated with tryptase at 1 μg/ml for 24 h. a, b Western blotting analysis of claudin-5 and occludin levels, which were quantified and normalised to the respective GAPDH. Each value was then expressed relative to the control, which was set to 1 (n = 3). **P < 0.01 versus the control group. ^##P < 0.01 versus the tryptase group. The data are presented as the mean ± S.E.M of at three separate experiments