Figure 1.

Cellular activities of interphotoreceptor retinoid binding protein promoter (IRBP156), Xenopus opsin promoter (XOPS), neural retina leucine zipper (NRLL), and rhodopsin kinase (RK) promoters in chicken retina. Lentiviral vectors were injected into the ventricles of chicken embryos (embryonic day 2 –E2) in ovo. The viruses injected were as follows: A-B pFIN-IRBP156-tdTOM; C-D pFIN-XOPS-tdTOM; E-F pFIN-NRLL-tdTOM; G-H pFIN-RK-GFP-WPRE. The retinas of the injected embryos were harvested on E19–20 and the cells expressing the fluorescent reporter proteins were identified using native fluorescent and immunofluorescent microscopy. In selecting the representative images shown in this and subsequent figures, our goal was to document all of the cell types and the variability in expression levels of the reporter proteins observed in transduced cell populations. The sections shown in B, D, F, and H were immunostained with a rod transducin polyclonal antibody that was visualized using either goat anti-rabbit Alexa Fluor 488 (B, D, F) or 594 (H) secondary antibody. Arrows indicate inner retinal cells (A) or rod photoreceptors (B, H). All sections were counterstained with DAPI. All scale bars shown equal 50 µm. Abbreviations: ONL represents outer nuclear layer; INL represents inner nuclear layer.