Distinct brain vascular cell types manifest inducible cyclooxygenase expression as a function of the strength and nature of immune insults.

Induced prostanoid synthesis by cells associated with the cerebral vasculature has been implicated in mediating immune system influences on the CNS, but the cell type(s) involved remain unsettled. To determine whether this might derive from differences in the nature and intensity of the stimuli used to model immune insults, immunochemical and hybridization histochemical methods were used to monitor cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression alone, or in conjunction with endothelial, perivascular, and glial cell markers, in brains of rats treated with varying doses of interleukin-1 (IL-1) or bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Vehicle-treated animals displayed weak COX-2 expression in the meninges, choroid plexus, and larger blood vessels. Rats challenged intravenously with IL-1beta (1.87-30 microgram/kg) showed a marked increase in the number of vascular-associated cells displaying COX-2-immunoreactivity (ir). More than 90% stained positively for the ED2 macrophage differentiation antigen, identifying them as perivascular cells, whereas none coexpressed endothelial or glial cell markers. Low doses of LPS (0.1 microgram/kg) elicited a similar response profile, but higher doses (2-100 microgram/kg) provoked COX-2 expression in a progressively greater number of cells exhibiting distinct round or multipolar morphologies, corresponding to cells expressing endothelial (RECA-1) or perivascular (ED2) cell antigens, respectively. Similarly, ultrastructural analysis localized COX-2-ir to the perinuclear region of endothelial cells of LPS-treated but not IL-1-treated rats. We conclude that perivascular cells exhibit the lower threshold to COX-2 expression in response to either IL-1 or endotoxin treatment, and that enzyme expression by endothelial cells requires one or more facets of the more complex immune stimulus presented by LPS.