Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Jul 1.
Published in final edited form as: Exp Neurol. 2019 Mar 22;317:271–283. doi: 10.1016/j.expneurol.2019.03.011

Figure 5. The mTOR pathway is required for HDAC5AA induced axon regeneration.

Figure 5.

(A) Representative optic nerve sections showing axon regeneration in mice that were intravitreally injected with AAV2-FLAG-HDAC5AA 15 days prior injury, and then treated with rapamycin or vehicle until harvest (15 days post optic nerve injury). (B) Quantification of (A) showing that rapamycin injection significantly reduces the number of regenerating axons at all distances analyzed. (C) Quantification of the percentage of Brn3a positive cells in injured retinas of mice treated in (A) compared to the non-injured contralateral retina. (D) Representative optic nerve sections showing axon regeneration in RAPTORflox/flox or RAPTORflox/+ mice that were injected with AAV2-FLAG-HDAC5AA 15 days prior injury, and with AAV2-Cre one day after injection with AAV2-FLAG-HDAC5AA , and sacrificed 15 days post injury. (E) Quantification of (D) showing that RAPTOR deletion in RGCs significantly reduces the number of regenerating axons at all distances. (F) Quantification of the percentage of Brn3a positive cells in injured retinas of mice treated in (E) compared to the non-injured contralateral retina. (G) Optic nerve sections collected 15 days after injury from TSC2 flox/flox mice that were injected with either AAV2-FLAG-HDAC5AA, or AAV2-GFP 15 days prior injury, and one day after this injection with AAV2-Cre. (H) Quantification of (G) showing that when TSC2 is deleted (leading to mTOR activation), HDAC5AA overexpression is not significantly different than GFP overexpression. Plotted values in (B), (C), (E), (F) and (H) were quantified and expressed as mean ± SEM. Statistical analysis is a One-way ANOVA with Bonferroni’s post hoc test in (B), (E) and (H), and a One-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post hoc test in (C) and (F), * p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001. Scale bar= 250 μm. N=5 for vehicle and rapamycin injected mice in (B), n=3 for vehicle and n=5 for rapamycin injected mice in (C), n=5 for RAPTORflox/+ and n=6 for RAPTORflox/flox in E, n=5 in both conditions of (F), and n=4 and 3 for AAV2-FLAG-HDAC5AA and AAV2-GFP respectively in the TSC2flox/flox experiment.