A. A. Tykhomyrov¹, V. S. Nedzvetsky^2,3, C. A. Ağca³,
V. V. Korsa¹, T. V. Grinenko¹

¹Palladin Institute of Biochemistry, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv;
²Dnipropetrovsk National University, Dnipro, Ukraine;
³Bingöl University, Bingöl, Turkey;
e-mail: artem_tykhomyrov@ukr.net

The purpose of the present study was to examine the plasminogen localization and to detect levels of its fragments (angiostatins) in various regions of rat brain as well as to establish whether rat brain astrocytes could be involved in angiostatin production. It was shown immunohistochemically that plasminogen is distributed broadly in the various brain regions, with predominant expression in meningeal layer and IV, V, and VI layers or cerebral cortex, dentate gyrus, meningeal and Purkinje cells, molecular and granular layers of cerebellum, as well as vessel walls. Angiostatin polypeptides were detected by Western blot analysis mostly in the cerebral cortex and were represented by 50 and 40-30 kDa polypeptides. In the whole cell lysates from primary cultures of rat astrocytes, immunoreactive polypeptides with M_m ~ 92, 84, 65-60, 50, 40, 38-30 kDa, correspon­ding to native plasminogen and a variety of its truncated products, including angiostatin polypeptides, were revealed. Incubation of astrocytes with exogenous plasminogen resulted in gradual increasing levels of some plasminogen fragments, particularly 30 kDa protein. Moreover, this polypeptide appeared to be the single angiostatin released by astrocytes in vitro. We report here for the first time that astrocytes are one of the cell types in CNS that could be responsible for angiostatin formation and releasing.