The Role of Serotonin Transporter in Human Lung Development and in Neonatal Lung Disorders

Figure 1

SERT expression is specific and sensitive to the lung microvasculature (3,3′-diaminobenzidine, SERT antibody expression in brown). Autopsy tissue microarrays from newborns to 10 years of age showed crisp and diffuse SERT expression (arrow) in lung endothelium ((a) 200x; inset is high magnification 600x), with positive controls ((b) 200x) highlighting numerous serotoninergic neurons (arrows) in the Raphe nucleus (note negative endothelial staining of the adjacent small artery on the right, arrow head); all other organs had negative endothelial cell SERT staining as seen here in the adrenal ((c) 20x, no brown stain noted).

(a)

(b)

(c)