Inhibition of PEDF-R decreases corneal nerve regeneration.
A, experimental design and Schirmer's test analysis. Volume of mouse tears was measured on days 2, 4, and 6 after injury and treatment. *, p < 0.05 with ANOVA plus Fisher post hoc test at 95% of confidence level. B, representative whole-mount images of corneal nerves stained with anti PGP9.5 and percent of nerve density compared with normal corneas after 7 days of treatment. *, p < 0.05 with ANOVA plus Fisher post hoc test at 95% of confidence level. C, effect of atglistatin on the levels of Sema7A and BDNF in tears analyzed by Western blotting (pool sample of six eyes, 7 μg of protein per well). The intensity of immunoreactive bands was normalized to the baseline (uninjured corneas). The bars represent the mean of three experiments ± S.D. *, p < 0.05 with ANOVA plus Fisher post hoc test at 95% of confidence level.