Figure 4.

Lymphatic vessel barrier function and drainage capacity. a Representative images of 70kDa dextran diffusion in empty, lymphatic, and blood vessels over 15 min. Dashed lines indicate lumen boundaries. b Normalized intensity profiles of 70 kDa dextran diffusion, where lymphatic vessels have moderate barrier capacity in comparison to blood vessels. The initial concentration decreases by 12%, 23%, and 52% for blood, lymphatic, and empty vessels, respectively. c Quantification of vessel permeability. For both 10 kDa and 70 kDa dextran, lymphatic vessels are ~2-fold leakier than blood vessels. Both endothelial vessels, however, provide barrier function in comparison to empty lumens. d Quantification of drainage capacity. Lymphatic vessels uptake significantly more 70 kDa dextran over 30 min. as compared to blood vessels. Permeability values are the averages of at least n = 4 individual vessels. Drainage values are the averages of n = 3 individual vessels. All error bars are one standard deviation. Scale bars are 100 μm. *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001, ****p ≤ 0.0001.