Figure 5.

Neutralizing vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) does not globally diminish growth factor levels in experimental proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR) vitreous. Vitreous isolated from retinal pigment epithelial (RPE)-injected rabbits was analyzed by multiplex or quantitative Western blot analysis to quantify 26 growth factors or cytokines associated with PVR.^18,24,41 The following growth factors and cytokines were lower than detection (<0.1 ng/mL) and, thus, omitted from the bar graph: platelet-derived growth factor-D (PDGF-D), granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), IL-9, IL-10, TNF-α, and TNF-β. Only the active forms of the three TGF-β isoforms were quantified. PDGF-C, PDGF-D, hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1, and connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) were quantified by using Western blot analysis, whereas all other factors were quantified by multiplex analysis. The anti-CTGF antibody recognizes both N- and C-terminal CTGF fragments. The bars represent the means, whereas error bars indicate SDs. The growth factor and cytokine profile for the fibroblast-injection model of PVR has been published elsewhere.²⁴ Paired t-tests were used to compare RV with RV-PVR. ^∗P < 0.05, RV-PVR to RV-VTr; ^†P < 0.05. RV, healthy vitreous isolated from noninjected eyes; RV-PVR, vitreous isolated from IgG-injected eyes with PVR stage 5; and RV-VTr, vitreous isolated from VEGF-Tr/aflibercept-injected eyes with PVR stages 0 to 1, were profiled.