First reported in 1987, the Endothelial Barrier Antigen (EBA) is expressed in brain endothelium and is downregulated in ischemic stroke. Its expression is negatively correlated with BBB disruption. It was reported to be a rat specific protein. It has low expression in cerebral arterioles, circumventricular organs, and choroid plexus endothelium.
What is the molecular identity and function of EBA? Is it also expressed in mouse brain endothelium?
Dear Dr. Tushar Deshpande
Endothelial barrier antigen (EBA) is a protein selectively expressed by ECs of micro vessels at the BBB. It is a protein triplet of 30, 25 and 23.5 kDa. Since it is absent in non-barrier vessels in other organs, it appears that EBA is a barrier protein of neural vessels.
It appears that EBA may play an important role in maintaining the integrity of BBB because study has found that the reduction of EBA immunoreactivity is correlated with the disruption of BBB. Thus, loss or reduction of EBA immunoreactivity is a sensitive indicator for brain vascular injury.
Under normal conditions, EBA is strongly expressed by brain ECs of barrier vessels. EBA is weakly expressed by few vessels in choroid plexus and pineal gland, these are areas known to lack barrier function.
FYI: EBA is localized not only to the luminal EC membranes but also to cytoplasm. The significance of cytoplasmic localization of EBA is not very clear, but it may provide a cytoplasmic pool for protein recruitment.
I have attached a few references below which you may want to refer.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC299500/pdf/pnas00337-0378.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/016557288990180X
Article Differential expression of an endothelial barrier antigen be...
Article Lin B, Ginsberg MD, Zhao W, Alonso OF, Belayev L, Busto RQua...
Regards,
Malcolm Nobre
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