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Review
Basement membrane and blood–brain barrier
  1. Lingling Xu,
  2. Abhijit Nirwane,
  3. Yao Yao
  1. Department of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr. Yao Yao, Department of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences, University of Georgia, 240 West Green Street, Athens GA 30602, USA; yyao{at}uga.edu

Abstract

The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is a highly complex and dynamic structure, mainly composed of brain microvascular endothelial cells, pericytes, astrocytes and the basement membrane (BM). The vast majority of BBB research focuses on its cellular constituents. Its non-cellular component, the BM, on the other hand, is largely understudied due to its intrinsic complexity and the lack of research tools. In this review, we focus on the role of the BM in BBB integrity. We first briefly introduce the biochemical composition and structure of the BM. Next, the biological functions of major components of the BM in BBB formation and maintenance are discussed. Our goal is to provide a concise overview on how the BM contributes to BBB integrity.

  • basement membrane
  • blood-brain barrier
  • laminin
  • collagen Iv

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/svn-2018-000198

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors LX and AN did the literature search. All authors wrote the manuscript. YY edited the manuscript.

    • Funding This work was partially supported by the American Heart Association Scientist Development Grant (16SDG29320001).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement No additional data are available.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.