Moreover, the steep increase of osteopontin and CD44 receptor expression, and osteopontin-CD44 receptor interaction in peri-infarct glial cells (astrocytes and microglia/macrophages) 15 h post-onset of ischemic stroke (Fig. 1c,d, Supplementary Fig. S4) was associated with significantly increased expression of the glial activation markers GFAP in peri-infarct astrocytes and IBA1 in microglia/macrophages (Supplementary Fig. S4) compared to those of the contralateral hemisphere (Supplementary Fig. S5). Here, GFAP is linked to ischemic stroke.