Glial Pathology in Major Depressive Disorder: An Approach to Investigate the Coverage of Blood Vessels by Astrocyte Endfeet in Human Postmortem Brain

Grazyna Rajkowska; Jose Javier Miguel-Hidalgo

doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-9068-9_17

Glial Pathology in Major Depressive Disorder: An Approach to Investigate the Coverage of Blood Vessels by Astrocyte Endfeet in Human Postmortem Brain

Methods Mol Biol. 2019:1938:247-254. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-9068-9_17.

Authors

Grazyna Rajkowska¹, Jose Javier Miguel-Hidalgo²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, MS, USA. grajkowska@umc.edu.
² Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, MS, USA.

PMID: 30617985
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4939-9068-9_17

Abstract

Double immunohistochemistry and confocal microscopy permits to detect the coverage of blood vessels by astrocytic endfeet in human postmortem brain tissue. Here we describe double immunofluorescent staining for detecting a colocalization of a marker of astrocytic processes (labeled with an antibody for aquaporin-4 (AQP4) and a marker for blood vessels (labeled with an antibody to collagen IV). Then, we present a microscopic analysis of the coverage of blood vessels by astrocytic processes using Nikon C1 confocal microscope, Photoshop, and ImageJ software.

Keywords: Aquaporin-4; Astrocytes; Blood vessels; Collagen IV; Confocal microscopy; Immunofluorescence.

MeSH terms

Astrocytes / metabolism*
Astrocytes / pathology
Autopsy
Blood Vessels / metabolism*
Brain / metabolism
Depressive Disorder, Major / etiology*
Depressive Disorder, Major / metabolism*
Depressive Disorder, Major / pathology
Fluorescent Antibody Technique
Humans
Immunohistochemistry
Microscopy, Confocal
Neuroglia / metabolism*
Neuroglia / pathology
Postmortem Changes