Fig. 6.

Müller glia mediate anisotropic mechanical forces in the retinal epithelium. (A-A”) Live imaging time course of targeted Müller glial ablations in Tg(gfap: EGFP; trβ2: tdTomato;ruby) juvenile zebrafish with glial (green) and Red cone (red) reporters. Photoreceptor profiles tracked for strain analysis (white dots). (A’-A”’) Targeted ablation of Müller glia introduces a hole in the sheet of Müller glial processes at the OLM. (Also see Additional file 12: Figure S7.) Relaxation of surrounding retinal epithelium at 9 min (A’), 27 min (A”), and 54 min (A”’) after ablation. (Also see Additional file 13: Movie S5.) (B-B’) trβ2: tdTomato+ Red cones survive after Müller glial ablation. (C-D) Schematic of pre (C) and post (D) ablation. Cones tracked for strain analysis (x). (E-F) Mechanical strain perpendicular (x-strain, E) and parallel (y-strain, F) to the retinal margin after ablation. Strains greater and smaller than 1 represent stretching and compression, respectively. Each retina is represented by a different shaped symbol (n = 6 controls; n = 8 experimental). Horizontal axis is the time interval between the ablation and the middle of the post-ablation imaging scan; two or three post-ablation scans were collected for each retina. Scale bars: 5 μm (A”’ and B’)