Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: 10.3390/biomedicines10040830
Title: Alcohol-Induced Alterations in the Vascular Basement Membrane in the Substantia Nigra of the Adult Human Brain
Authors: Skuja, Sandra
Jain, Nityanand
Smirnovs, Marks
Murovska, Modra
Joint Laboratory of Electron Microscopy
Institute of Microbiology and Virology
Keywords: alcoholism;collagen-IV;electron microscopy;fibronectin;laminin-111;light microscopy;substantia nigra;vascular basement membrane;3.1 Basic medicine;1.6 Biological sciences;1.1. Scientific article indexed in Web of Science and/or Scopus database;Medicine (miscellaneous);General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology;SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
Issue Date: Apr-2022
Citation: Skuja , S , Jain , N , Smirnovs , M & Murovska , M 2022 , ' Alcohol-Induced Alterations in the Vascular Basement Membrane in the Substantia Nigra of the Adult Human Brain ' , Biomedicines , vol. 10 , no. 4 , 830 . https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines10040830 , https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines10040830
Abstract: The blood–brain barrier (BBB) represents a highly specialized interface that acts as the first line of defense against toxins. Herein, we investigated the structural and ultrastructural changes in the basement membrane (BM), which is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the BBB, in the context of chronic alcoholism. Human post-mortem tissues from the Substantia Nigra (SN) region were obtained from 44 individuals, then grouped into controls, age-matched alcoholics, and non-age-matched alcoholics and assessed using light and electron microscopy. We found significantly less CD31+ vessels in alcoholic groups compared to controls in both gray and white matter samples. Alcoholics showed increased expression levels of collagen-IV, laminin-111, and fibronectin, which were coupled with a loss of BM integrity in comparison with controls. The BM of the gray matter was found to be more disintegrated than the white matter in alcoholics, as demonstrated by the expression of both collagen-IV and laminin-111, thereby indicating a breakdown in the BM’s structural composition. Furthermore, we observed that the expression of fibronectin was upregulated in the BM of the white matter vasculature in both alcoholic groups compared to controls. Taken together, our findings highlight some sort of aggregation or clumping of BM proteins that occurs in response to chronic alcohol consumption.
Description: Funding Information: Funding: This research was funded by the Latvian Council of Science, “The Role of Human Herpesvirus-6t Infection and Alcohol Abuse in the Development of Neuroinflammation”, project no. lzp-2020/2-0069. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
DOI: 10.3390/biomedicines10040830
ISSN: 2227-9059
Appears in Collections:Research outputs from Pure / Zinātniskās darbības rezultāti no ZDIS Pure



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