Fig. 6.

Effects of intravitreal HOG-LDL on ER stress, JNK activation, autophagy and apoptosis in retinas of diabetic rats. STZ-induced diabetic rats received intravitreal HOG-LDL (HOG) vs N-LDL (N) to achieve vitreal levels of 50 or 200 mg protein/l vs PBS control. Total retinal protein extracts were analysed by western blot, and the following protein levels were quantified by densitometry: p-PERK (white bars) and p-eIF2α (grey bars) (a); p-JNK and total JNK (b); ATG-5 (white bars), Beclin-1 (grey bars) and LC3BII (black bars) (c); CHOP (white bars) and activated caspase 3 (grey bars) (d). Data are means ± SD, n = 5; *p < 0.05 and **p < 0.01 vs PBS; ^† p < 0.05 vs HOG-50