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. 2009 Mar 9;29(10):2694–2703. doi: 10.1128/MCB.01460-08

FIG. 1.

FIG. 1.

Reduced oxygen-induced retinopathy in Adam9−/− mice compared to controls. (A) Adam9−/− mice and wild-type controls were subjected to the OIR model (see Materials and Methods for details). Sections of their retinae were then used to determine the number of neovascular nuclei on the vitreous side of the internal limiting membrane (see Materials and Methods for details). Each point represents the average number of nuclei per section of one animal. The results demonstrate reduced proliferative retinopathy in the absence of ADAM9 (n = 24 for wild-type [Wt] mice, and n = 18 for Adam9−/− [9−/−] mice; P < 0.0001). (B) Whole-mount analysis of a retina of an Adam9−/− mouse and a wild-type control subjected to the OIR model (for each genotype, one representative FITC-isolectin-stained example of over 15 analyzed retinae is shown). The central avascular area is increased in the Adam9−/− retina compared to that of the wild-type control. (C) Quantitation of the avascular area in relationship to the total size of the retina corroborates the increased avascular area in Adam9−/− mice (P < 0.0001). An example of how the size of the avascular area was determined using NIH Image software is shown at the right (see Materials and Methods for details). (D) Analysis of retinal developmental angiogenesis at P6. Retinae of 6-day-old wild-type and Adam9−/− mice were stained with FITC-isolectin to visualize the vascular bed, and the ratio of the surface area covered by the vascular tree was calculated as a percentage of the surface area of the whole retina. No significant difference in the development of the vascular bed between Adam9−/− mice and wild-type controls was observed. (E) Western blots of extracts of one retina per lane taken from wild-type mice between 1 and 5 days after ending their exposure to high oxygen (corresponds to P13 to P17, as indicated on the blot). The blots were probed with anti-ADAM9 cytoplasmic-domain antibodies and show slightly increased levels of mature ADAM9 on days 15 and 16 compared to the other days.