Abstract
Brain endothelial cells and their intercellular tight junctions form a cellular interface between the circulating blood and neural environment. All nutrients consumed by brain must traffic through this cellular space and its two limiting membranes. Additionally, the endothelial cell affects homeostasis by contributing or removing constituents from the interstitial space. These endothelial-cell functions are collectively accomplished with a rich complement of transporters and channels distributed, frequently asymmetrically, between the luminal and abluminal membranes. The identity and characterization of these proteins is rapidly advancing by application of molecular and cellular techniques. Knowledge of these molecular mechanisms will be beneficial in improving brain function and the treatment of neurological diseases.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abbott N. J. (2000) Inflammatory mediators and modulation of blood-brain barrier permeability. Cell. Mol. Neurobiol. 20, 131–147.
Abumrad N., Harmon C., and Ibrahimi A. (1998) Membrane transport of long-chain fatty acids: evidence for a facilitated process. J. Lipid Res. 39, 2309–2318.
Bär Th. (1980) The vascular system of the cerebral cortex. Adv. Anat. Embryol. Cell Biol. 59, 1.
Bonen A., Dyck D. J., and Luiken J. J. F. P. (1998) Skeletal muscle fatty acid transport and transporters, in Skeletal Muscle Metabolism in Exercise and Diabetes (Richter et al., eds.), Plenum Press, New York, pp. 193–203.
Brightman M. W. and Reese T. S. (1969) Junctions between intimately apposed cell membranes in the vertebrate brain. J. Cell Biol. 40, 648–677.
Brightman M. W., Hori M., Rapoport S. I., Reese T. S., and Westergaard E. (1973) Osmotic opening of tight junctions in cerebral endothelium. J. Comp. Neurol. 152, 317.
Citi S. and Cordenonsi M. (1998) Tight junction proteins. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1448, 1–11.
Crone C. (1963) The permeability of capillaries in various organs as determined by use of the “indicator diffusion” method. Acta Physiol. Scand. 58, 292–305.
Crone C. and Olesen, S.-P. (1982) Electrical resistance of brain microvascular endothelium. Brain Res. 241, 49–55.
Drewes, L.R. (1999) Transport of the brain fuels: glucose and lactate, in Brain Barrier Systems (Paulson O., ed.), Munksgaard, Copenhagen, pp. 285–295.
Gao B., Stieger B., Noé B., Fritschy J.-M., and Meier P. J. (1999) Localization of the organic anion transporting polypeptide 2 (Oatp2) in capillary endothelium and choroid plexus epithelium of rat brain. J. Histochem. Cytochem. 47, 1255–1263.
Huai-Yun H., Secrest D. T., Mark K. S., Carney D., Brandquist C., Elmquist W. F., and Miller D. W. (1998) Expression of multidrug resistance-associated protein (MRP) in brain microvessel endothelial cells. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 243, 816–820.
Laterra J., Keep R., Betz A. L., and Goldstein G. W. (1999) Blood-brain-cerebrospinal fluid barriers, in Basic Neurochemistry, 6th ed. (Siegel G. J., Agranoff B. W., Albers, R. W., Fisher S. K., and Uhler M. D., eds.), Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia, pp. 671–689.
Neuwelt E. A., Barnett P. A., Bigner D. D., and Frenkel E. P. (1982) Effects of adrenal cortical steroids and osmotic blood-brain barrier opening on methotrexate delivery to gliomas in the rodent: the factor of the blood-brain barrier. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 5, 211.
Reese T. W. and Karnovsky M. J. (1967) Fine structural localization of a blood-brain barrier to exogenous peroxidase. J. Cell Biol. 34, 207–217.
Schinkel A. H., Smit J. J., van Tellingen O., Beijnen J. H., Wagenaar E., van Deemter L., et al. (1994) Disruption of the mouse mdrla P-glycoprotein gene leads to a deficiency in the blood-brain barrier and to increased sensitivity to drugs. Cell 77, 491–402.
Sugawara M., Nakanishi T., Fei Y. J., Huang W., Ganapathy M. E., Leibach F. H., and Ganapathy V. (2000) Cloning of an amino acid transporter with functional characteristics and tissue expression pattern identical to that of system A. J. Biol. Chem. 275, 16,473–16,477.
Tsukita S., Furuse M., and Itoh M. (1999) Structural and signalling molecules come together at tight junctions. Curr. Opin. Cell Biol. 11, 628–633.
Varoqui H., Zhu H., Yao D., Ming H., and Erickson J. D. (2000) Cloning and functional identification of a neuronal glutamine transporter. J. Biol. Chem. 275, 4049–4054.
Wiederhold K.-H., Bielser Jr. W., Schulz U., Veteau M.-J., and Hunziker O. (1976) Three-dimensional reconstruction of brain capillaries from frozen serial sections. Microvasc. Res. 11, 175–180.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Drewes, L.R. Molecular architecture of the brain microvasculature. J Mol Neurosci 16, 93–98 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1385/JMN:16:2-3:93
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1385/JMN:16:2-3:93