Fig. 1.

Effects of Elane deletion on vascular permeability in diabetic mice. WT mice with diabetes (WT-D) of 8 months duration significantly increased accumulation of FITC-BSA in the IPL (a), INL (b) and OPL (c) layers of the retina compared with that in WT non-diabetic (WT-N) mice. (d) Representative images from each study group. Genetic deletion of Elane significantly inhibited the extravascular fluorescence in the IPL, INL and OPL of the retina in diabetic Elane^−/−-D mice. FITC-BSA was injected intravenously, allowed to circulate for 30 min, and average fluorescence was measured from cross-sections from each layer, excluding microvessels. Data are shown as % relative to the fluorescence in WT-N mice. Scale bar, 100 μm. n=5 for WT-N, n=6 per group for the others. Data are expressed as mean ± SD. ***p<0.001 vs WT-N, ^†p<0.05, ^†††p<0.001 vs WT-D