KDR and Cerebral ischemia: Several studies have shown that exogenous administration of rhEPO could attenuate BBB disruption after cerebral ischemia probably through reducing lipid peroxidation in the brain, downregulating the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 (VEGFR-2) expression along the penumbra region and alleviating the MMP-2 and MMP-9 activity in ischemic microvessels (Li et al., 2007a; Bahcekapili et al., 2007; Chi et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2015).