Immortalized Mouse Cerebellar Capillary Endothelial Cells (cerebEND)

The mammalian cerebellum is indispensable in the coordination of voluntary movement (i.e. balance and locomotion), muscular tonus and equilibrium. The cerebellar blood brain barrier (BBB) helps maintain the homeostasis of the cerebellum microenvironment and its integrity is often connected to many disorders of the central nervous system (CNS). The Immortalized Mouse Cerebellar Capillary Endothelial Cell Line (cerebEND) provides a useful model for studies involving the differentiation and regulation of BBB as it shares principal features of the BBB in vivo, specifically in that 1) it retains endothelial markers VE-Cadherin and PECAM-1; 2) it displays tight junction associated markers such as occludin, claudin-3, -5, -12, 3) it expresses the BBB marker protein Glut-1 and 4) it shows high electrical resistance, representing barrier properties. This cell line is also responsive to glucocorticoid, estrogen-treatment and pro-inflammatory mediator such as TNFα, making this cell line valuable in elucidating cellular responses of endothelial cells to different stimuli. Compared to the Immortalized Mouse Cerebral Capillary Endothelial Cell Line (cEND), the cerebEND shows a higher fragility of the cerebellar BBB to inflammatory stimuli; together the two cell lines represent important model systems for these different brain regions.