Fig. 1

Fig. 1

Cells with BLEC molecular markers are present within the mouse leptomeninges. a Coronal brain section of adult zebrafish brain indicating the imaging area in the dorsal optic tectum (TeO). b A 14 month old Tg(kdr-l:mCherry); Tg(flt4:mCitrine) double transgenic zebrafish has cells in the meninges (white bracket) that express flt4/vegfr3 (α-GFP, green) near kdr-l positive (α-RFP, red) blood vessels. DAPI (blue) labels the nuclei. Scale = 50 µm. c Coronal mouse brain section showing the imaging areas of the meninges. d As revealed by IHC, 17-week-old mouse brains express VEGFR3 (green) in the meninges (white bracket). Tie2-GFP;NG2-DsRed double reporter mice were used to distinguish arteries and veins. NG2 (red) labels pericytes and smooth muscle cells, Tie2 (magenta) labels vascular endothelial cells, and Hoechst (blue) stains nuclei. The image is rotated with the parenchyma at the bottom for ease of comparison with panel b. Scale = 50 µm. e-e′′′ As revealed by IHC, cells of the meninges co-express MRC1 (e, yellow), LYVE1 (e′, white), and VEGFR3 (e′′, green). Red arrows highlight cells expressing these three markers. The images are rotated with the parenchyma at the bottom. scale = 30 µm. f, g Quantification of the relative numbers of single and double-labelled cells in 2-month old mouse meninges. VEGFR3 and LYVE1 cell counts were from n = 2 brains, 3 coronal sections (10 area images)/brain. MRC1 and LYVE1 cell counts were from n = 3 brains, 3 coronal sections (4 area images)/brain. The mean values for each set are depicted