HGF and Cerebral ischemia: Indeed, HGF protects BBB disruption after microsphere embolism-induced sustained cerebral ischemia by avoiding the inhibition of Bcl-2 (Date et al., 2006), thus decreasing apoptosis, and by reducing the expression of occludin and zonula occludens (ZO)-1, which are tight junction proteins, in cerebrovascular endothelial cells (Takeo et al., 2008).