Crossing the Border: Modeling the Blood Brain Barrier

The blood-brain barrier (BBB), formed by brain endothelial cells, pericytes, and astrocytes, is organized into a neurovascular unit that regulates the exchange of proteins between blood circulation and brain parenchyma. Human stem-cell-based models using brain endothelial cells are a powerful tool to investigate how disease-related conditions might affect the blood-brain barrier integrity. However, the cell type composition is critical to faithfully model transcytosis across the blood-brain b...