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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Jun 20.
Published in final edited form as: Neurosci Lett. 2015 Dec 28;625:11–15. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2015.12.012

Figure 1. Conditional knockout of Hdac3 prevents heterochromatin formation after optic nerve crush.

Figure 1

Conditional knockout of Hdac3 in RGCs was achieved by injecting AAV2-Cre virus into the left (OS) eye of Hdac3fl/fl mice prior to ONC. AAV2-Cre injected into the OS eyes of Rosa26-Tomatofl/fl mice served as virus-injected controls. Contralateral right (OD) eyes served as uncrushed and non-injected controls. Retinas were harvested at 5 days following crush injury for evaluation. (A) Retinal whole mount showing staining for acetylated histone H4 in unaffected OS eyes. (B) Crush elicits wide spread deacetylation of histones, but this process is blocked in RGCs lacking Hdac3 (C). DAPI counterstain. (Scale bar = 10 μm). (D) Transmission electron micrograph (TEM) image of a healthy cell in the ganglion cell layer (GCL) of a Rosa26-Tomatofl/fl control OD eye. (E) TEM image of heterochromatic cells in the GCL of an AAV2-Cre/GFP injected and crushed Rosa26-Tomatofl/fl OS eye. (F) TEM image of a cell in the GCL of the Hdac3 conditional knockout crushed OS eye. Healthy nuclei (N) are euchromatic and have well-formed nucleoli (n) and intact nuclear envelopes (ne), while injured cells exhibit heterochromatic nuclei with degrading nuclear envelopes. (Scale bar = 2μm)