Figure 7.

Effects of AAV2/2-NGB Treatment on DBA/2J Retinas

(A) Immunofluorescence analysis of retinal sections from a 1-year-old mouse in which one eye underwent intravitreal injection of AAV2/2-NGB at 2 months of age (early treatment) and the contralateral eye remained untreated. (B) Immunofluorescence analysis of retinal sections from a 1-year-old mouse in which one eye underwent intravitreal injection of AAV2/2-NGB at 8 months of age (late treatment) and the contralateral eye remained untreated. For (A) and (B), confocal images illustrate immunolabeling for BRN3A (red) and GFAP (green). The nuclei were stained with DAPI (blue). The scale bars represent 20 μm. Abbreviations: ONL, outer nuclear layer; INL, inner nuclear layer; GCL, ganglion cell layer. (C) The overall number of RGCs was estimated by counting BRN3A-positive cells in retinas from the treated eyes of DBA/2J mice that underwent intravitreal injection of AAV2/2-NGB at 2 months (early treatment) or 8 months (late treatment) of age; all of the mice were euthanized at 1 year of age. The values obtained for treated retinas were compared to those obtained for untreated retinas from 1-year-old mice. The bar chart illustrates the mean numbers of RGCs ± SEMs; the number of mice evaluated in each group is shown in brackets. p values in treated retinas were calculated with respect to RGC values in untreated retinas from 1-year-old mice. (D) The bar chart illustrates the normalized values of the fluorescence intensity for GFAP labeling in entire retinal sections. The values were normalized against the mean fluorescence in retinas from 12-month-old mice. The number of retinal sections from independent mice evaluated with ImageJ is indicated below each bar. The values were plotted using GraphPad Prism 6 as means ± SEMs.