Figure 4. Cryopreserved MSC prevent RGC loss after ischemia/reperfusion injury in vivo.

(A) Injury and treatment timeline for all retinal ischemia/reperfusion model. Intraocular pressure (IOP) was elevated to blanch the fundus for 1 hour, after which perfusion was restored. 2 hours after reperfusion, eyes were injected with one of the MSC groups or PBS as a vehicle control. 7 days later, animals were sacrificed and eyes were analyzed for RGC counts. (B) Representative images of γ-synuclein immunostaining of whole-mounted retina from non-ischemic retinas (control) and retinas after I/R treated with vehicle (I/R + PBS), fresh MSC (I/R + Fresh MSC) or cryo-MSC (I/R + Cryo-MSC). (C) Quantitative analysis of RGC survival in eyes after I/R revealed a significant rescue effect after transplantation of both fresh MSC and cryo-MSC (mean ± SD, One-way ANOVA with Tukey honest significant difference post hoc test to correct for multiple comparisons, p < 0.05 considered significant). #denotes p < 0.001 in comparison to healthy control. Both cryo-MSC and fresh MSC were from donor 7083.