GFAP and chronic kidney disease: Immunohistological analysis of glial fibrillary acidic proteins (GFAPs), markers of activated astrocytes, showed a significantly higher number of hypertrophic astrocytes in the ischemic cortex of CKD-veh than SHAM-veh mice (CKD-veh: 52.66 ± 7.80 vs. SHAM-veh: 32.02 ± 6.41 GFAP-positive cells/field, p < 0.01) (Fig. 5).