Figure 5.

Loss of glial staining in the dBACE knockdown and mutant. A–D, Fifty micrometer vibratome head sections stained with anti-REPO. The image shows a stack of 10 confocal sections taken at 0.5 μm steps. A, In a 3-week-old GMR-GAL4 control fly, anti-REPO labels distal rows of glial cells (red arrow), consisting of the fenestrated glia, pseudocartridge glia, and outer satellite glia. Proximal to this region, additional glial rows are detectable, with the inner satellite glia localized in the lamina cortex (arrowhead) and the epithelial glia in the lamina neuropil (white arrow). B, In a 3-d-old GMR-GAL4; UAS-dBACE^RNAi fly, gaps appear in the rows of glial cells in the subretinal layer (red arrow). The row of satellite (arrowhead) and epithelial glia (white arrow) still seems intact. C, The phenotype is more prominent after 3 weeks with only a few cells still stained in the subretinal layer (red arrows). Most of the remaining glia appears to be satellite glia (arrowheads). D, A 3-week-old dBACE²⁰⁴⁵/Df(2L)Exel7038 fly also shows loss of glial staining, with gaps in the distal layer (red arrow) and a loss of most of the epithelial glia (white arrow), whereas the satellite glia still seemed to be present (arrowheads). E, F, Ten micrometer cryostat head sections stained with anti-ELAV show no significant difference in the staining pattern between the 3-week-old GMR-GAL4 control fly and an age-matched GMR-GAL4; UAS-dBACE^RNAi fly. re, retina; la, lamina. Scale bar: (in A, E) 10 μm.