Glial Pathology in Major Depressive Disorder: An Approach to Investigate the Coverage of Blood Vessels by Astrocyte Endfeet in Human Postmortem Brain.

Double immunohistochemistry and confocal microscopy permits to detect the coverage of blood vessels by astrocytic endfeet in human postmortem brain tissue. Here we describe double immunofluorescent staining for detecting a colocalization of a marker of astrocytic processes (labeled with an antibody for aquaporin-4 (AQP4) and a marker for blood vessels (labeled with an antibody to collagen IV). Then, we present a microscopic analysis of the coverage of blood vessels by astrocytic processes using Nikon C1 confocal microscope, Photoshop, and ImageJ software.