PMID- 24278454
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20140805
LR  - 20211021
IS  - 1932-6203 (Electronic)
IS  - 1932-6203 (Linking)
VI  - 8
IP  - 11
DP  - 2013
TI  - A novel in vitro model to study pericytes in the neurovascular unit of the 
      developing cortex.
PG  - e81637
LID - 10.1371/journal.pone.0081637 [doi]
LID - e81637
AB  - Cortical function is impaired in various disorders of the central nervous system 
      including Alzheimer's disease, autism and schizophrenia. Some of these disorders 
      are speculated to be associated with insults in early brain development. 
      Pericytes have been shown to regulate neurovascular integrity in development, 
      health and disease. Hence, precisely controlled mechanisms must have evolved in 
      evolution to operate pericyte proliferation, repair and cell fate within the 
      neurovascular unit (NVU). It is well established that pericyte deficiency leads 
      to NVU injury resulting in cognitive decline and neuroinflammation in cortical 
      layers. However, little is known about the role of pericytes in 
      pathophysiological processes of the developing cortex. Here we introduce an in 
      vitro model that enables to precisely study pericytes in the immature cortex and 
      show that moderate inflammation and hypoxia result in caspase-3 mediated pericyte 
      loss. Using heterozygous EYFP-NG2 mouse mutants we performed live imaging of 
      pericytes for several days in vitro. In addition we show that pericytes maintain 
      their capacity to proliferate which may allow cell-based therapies like 
      reprogramming of pericytes into induced neuronal cells in the presented approach.
FAU - Zehendner, Christoph M
AU  - Zehendner CM
AD  - Institute of Physiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center of the 
      Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany.
FAU - Wedler, Hannah E
AU  - Wedler HE
FAU - Luhmann, Heiko J
AU  - Luhmann HJ
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20131121
PL  - United States
TA  - PLoS One
JT  - PloS one
JID - 101285081
RN  - EC 3.4.22.- (Caspase 3)
SB  - IM
MH  - Animals
MH  - Caspase 3/metabolism
MH  - Cell Hypoxia
MH  - Cell Proliferation
MH  - Cell Survival
MH  - Cerebral Cortex/blood supply/enzymology/*growth & development
MH  - Inflammation/enzymology
MH  - Mice
MH  - Mice, Inbred C57BL
MH  - Pericytes/cytology/*physiology
PMC - PMC3836850
COIS- Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
EDAT- 2013/11/28 06:00
MHDA- 2014/08/06 06:00
PMCR- 2013/11/21
CRDT- 2013/11/27 06:00
PHST- 2013/08/30 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2013/10/14 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2013/11/27 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2013/11/28 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2014/08/06 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2013/11/21 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - PONE-D-13-35724 [pii]
AID - 10.1371/journal.pone.0081637 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - PLoS One. 2013 Nov 21;8(11):e81637. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0081637. 
      eCollection 2013.