Figure 9.

Exercise prevents RPE stress in I307N Rho retinal degeneration. RPE stress is suggested by alpha-catenin translocation from cell borders into cytosol [42]. RPE flatmounts (RPE apical side facing up) from the mice euthanized 1 week after degeneration was induced were immunostained for alpha-catenin (red), ZO-1 (green), and 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) (blue). A–C: Representative 100X fluorescent confocal microscopy images of flatmounts. D–F: High-resolution images of the superior region from the inactive uninduced (D), inactive induced (E), or active induced group (F); images taken at 600X magnification. Flatmounts from the uninduced, inactive mice had little or no cytosolic alpha-catenin immunosignal (A and D). Flatmounts from the inactive induced mice exhibited heavy cytosolic alpha-catenin immunostaining, particularly in the regions of cells with distortion in shape and changes in size (B and E). Flatmounts from the induced but active mice exhibited almost no cytosolic alpha-catenin staining, similar to the samples from the uninduced mice, with nearly unperturbed RPE cell shape and size (C and F). The size markers represent 30 µm.