[Establishment of a method for detecting peripheral blood circulating brain microvascular endothelial cells, a novel biomarker for blood-brain barrier injury]

To establish a method for detecting circulating brain microvascular endothelial cells (cBMECs), a novel biomarker of blood-brain barrier (BBB) injury.Blood samples were collected from 33 patients with AIDS encephalitis and 13 healthy subjects for detection of cBMECs, cECs and EPCs using magnetic affinity isolation and immune identification technology.The numbers of cBMECs, cECs and EPCs were significantly higher in the AIDS patients than in the control subjects (t=4.298, P0.01; t=4.886, P0.01; t=4.889, P0.01). An significant association was also noted between HIV load and cBMEC number (r=0.928, P0.01).We have successfully established a method for detecting peripheral blood cBMECs, which can be of important value in non-invasive assessment of BBB injury.