Ultrastructural and immunocytochemical evidence that an incompetent blood-brain barrier is related to the pathophysiology of cavernous malformations

Abstract

The absence of blood-brain barrier components may lead to leakage of red blood cells into these lesions and the surrounding brain in the absence of major haemorrhage, thus accounting for the propensity of cavernous malformations to cause seizures. These data also raise the possibility that KRIT1 plays a part in the formation of endothelial cell junctions and expression of a mature vascular phenotype.