Vascular leakage due to compromised integrity of the endothelial barrier is closely associated with brain damage in several neurological disorders, including ischaemic stroke. Saxatilin, a snake venom disintegrin containing the Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) motif, exerts thrombolytic and antiplatelet effects by interacting with multiple integrins on platelets. Integrin signalling is indispensable for regulation of endothelial permeability. Saxatilin may play a role in vascular leakage after ischaemia because it has high affinity for endothelial integrins. Here, we determined whether Fc-saxatilin, an Fc-fusion protein of saxatilin, could prevent vascular leakage under hypoxic or ischaemic conditions. In mouse brain microvascular endothelial cells, hypoxia increased the permeability to FITC-dextran, and this effect was attenuated by Fc-saxatilin treatment. Fc-saxatilin also blocked vascular leakage of Evans Blue in the ischaemic brain induced by middle cerebral artery occlusion in mice. Furthermore, the expression of occludin, a tight junction protein, was reduced by hypoxia in endothelial cells. This downregulation of occludin was attenuated by Fc-saxatilin treatment. We also determined the activity of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) 2 and 9 because they are implicated in the degradation of occludin and of the microvascular basal lamina. Hypoxia increased MMP-9 activity, and this increase was attenuated by Fc-saxatilin treatment. Fc-saxatilin specifically bound to integrin αvβ3 of the endothelial cells and inhibited hypoxia-induced activation of FAK, a downstream signalling molecule in integrin-dependent signal transduction. Taken together, these results provide new insights into the mechanism via which Fc-saxatilin, as an integrin antagonist, prevents vascular leakage under ischemic conditions by regulating occludin expression in endothelial tight junctions.
Keywords: Fc-saxatilin; disintegrin; endothelial permeability; occludin.