Entactin immunoreactivity in immature and adult rat brain

Entactin (nidogen) is a glycoprotein of 150 kDa mainly found in the basement membranes of peripheral tissues where it is co-localized and forms a very tight complex with the outgrowth-promoting molecule laminin. In the present report we tested by immunoblotting the specificity of polyclonal antibodies to laminin and entactin isolated from Engelbreth-Holm-Swarm (EHS) mouse sarcoma and investigated laminin and entactin immunoreactivities in the hippocampus of newborn, adult control and kainate-injured rats. The three polyclonal antibodies to laminin (two of them commercial) used in the present study stained somas of neurons, blood vessels and reactive glial cells, in agreement with previous reports. Nevertheless, all of them cross-reacted with entactin. The anti-entactin serum, which specifically recognized entactin protein, but not laminin or fibronectin, stained mainly the walls of blood vessels in rat brain slices. We observed a stronger entactin expression in immature than in adult brain, and a dramatic increase of vascular staining in kainate-injured hippocampus, suggesting a contribution of entactin to both development and reactive angiogenesis.