Because recent studies have indicated that tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) aggravates
neurodegenerative processes in many neural pathologies, we studied whether the
endogenous tPA antagonist neuroserpin has a neuroprotective effect in an animal model of
focal ischemic stroke. After induction of a focal ischemic stroke in the mouse by occlusion of
the midddle cerebral artery, we found that microglial cells accumulated in the marginal zone
of the infarct are the most important source for both plasminogen activators, tPA and uPA. To …