Here in the current study, we demonstrated for the first time the significant induction of MYL5 in hBMECs in response to meningitic E. coli infection as well as the ANGPTL4 treatment, and the increased MYL5 led to the BBB dysfunction by affecting the cellular cytoskeleton, which was actually consistent with several previous studies showing that many members in the MLC family have been shown to be able to change the shape of endothelial cells via regulating F-actin microfilaments [41,44]. Here, MLC1 is linked to escherichia coli infection.