Fig. 5

Icv injection of P2X7 nbs significantly reduced stroke size. P2X7-blocking nbs (30 μg) were injected intracerebroventricularly directly before tMCAO surgery of C57BL6J mice. Twenty-four hours after tMCAO, the mice were sacrificed. The mice treated with P2X7-blocking nbs showed significantly smaller ischemic volumes and a significantly smaller % of parenchyma loss in the ischemic hemisphere than the mice treated with a control isotype nbs. A Flow cytometry of brain resident microglia showed full coverage by P2X7-specific nbs compared to the controls (gating strategy Additional file 1: Fig. S2). Statistical significance was determined by Student’s t test. ***p < 0.001 Data are presented as the median ± SD of 8 P2X7-specific nb-injected mice and 9 isotype control-injected mice. B Representative TTC staining and representative overlays of stroke volume at 24 h following tMCAO. C 160 min after icv injection or ex vivo administration of 30 μg of P2X7-specific nbs, isolated microglia showed substantially lower DAPI uptake. Microglia in the absence of nbs and ATP did not show any DAPI uptake