Immortalized Rat Brain Vascular Endothelial Cells (GPNT)

The blood-brain barrier protects the central nervous system from potentially harmful substances by controlling the passage of cells and molecules. This barrier consists of vascular tissue, without pores, where the endothelial cells form tight junctions that allow only for select molecules to pass via pinocytosis. Immortalized Rat Brain Vascular Endothelial Cells (GPNT) was derived from microvessels in the cerebral cortex. The cells were immortalized by lipofection using an SV40 retroviral vector with a temperature sensitive large T antigen (tsA58) and contain a neomycin resistance gene. This cell line retains many characteristics of its primary parent cell line including expression of central nervous system specific markers, such as P-glycoprotein and GLUT-1, a high affinity glucose transporter not found in other vascular endothelial tissue. In addition, this cell line also expresses important immunological molecules including VCAM-I, PECAM-1 and MHC class I and II. Due to these properties this cell line may be useful in investigating immunological function, signal transduction, and migration of immune cells in specialized brain vascular endothelial tissue. More generally this cell line is ideal for research on the blood brain barrier.