FIG. 7.

Otx2 is required for the terminal differentiation of bipolar cells. (A to D) Immunostaining of retinal sections from Otx2^flox/flox; L7-Cre-KI^+/+ (control) (A and C) and Otx2^flox/flox; L7-Cre-KI^+/− (Otx2 CKO) (B and D) mice at 1M with antibodies against Chx10 (A and B) and PKC (C and D). Scale bar, 50 μm. GCL, ganglion cell layer. (E) Numbers of Chx10- and PKC-positive cells in 1M retinas from Otx2^flox/flox; L7-Cre-KI^+/+ (control) and Otx2^flox/flox; L7-Cre-KI^+/− (Otx2 CKO) mice. Error bars represent the standard deviations of the means. *, P < 0.0005 by Student's t test. (F) Schematic of the Prkca promoter-reporter constructs for a transcription assay. The five OTX binding consensus sequences located in the Prkca 8.5-kb promoter region are indicated. (G) Luciferase reporter plasmids and 0, 0.05, 2, or 5 μg of Otx2 expression plasmids were transferred into NIH 3T3 cells with internal control vector pβSV. Three cell culture replicates per Otx2 expression plasmid level are shown. Error bars indicate the means ± the standard deviations of three replicated cell cultures.