Fig. 1.

Blood vessel network within the mouse spinal cord

The mouse lumbar spinal cord has a vast blood vessel network that covers the entirety of the neural tissue. [A] This is represented by the vessel endothelium (CD31 labelled, green). This includes differing of hierarchical order of vessels, including larger arterioles (Red arrow) that flow into smaller microvessels (Blue arrow). [B] Higher magnification (scale bar = 25 μm) image of this vessel organisation (endothelium labelled Green with CD31) in the spinal cord. [C] Larger arterioles are labelled with alpha smooth muscle actin (α-SMA, Red), with smaller capillaries solely labelled with endothelial marker CD31. [D] Furthermore, mural cells are identifiable with pericyte marker neuron-glia marker 2 (NG2, Blue) highlighting pericyte cells encapsulating only the capillaries. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)