Immediately following lens fiber cell removal, both WT and FNcKO remnant
lens cells stain robustly for pSMAD1/5/8, while this signaling begins to
decrease at 24 h PCS in WT LCs (P = 0.013) although this does
not occur in FNcKO LCs (P = 0.390). pSMAD1/5/8 levels continue
to downregulate in WT LCs at 48 h PCS (**P = 0.006), and this
reduction of pSMAD1/5/8 levels persists through 5 days PCS in WT LCs expressing
αSMA (**P = 0.004). In contrast, pSMAD1/5/8 levels never
significantly downregulate in FNcKO LCs, so they have elevated levels of
pSMAD1/5/8 at 5 days PCS (**P = 0.003) compared to WT LCs and
do not express elevated levels of αSMA. pSMAD1/5/8 (downstream of BMP
signaling)=(red), αSMA (green), and DNA detected by Draq5 (blue). Scale
bars: 35 μm. LC, remnant lens epithelial cells/lens cells; C, lens
capsule. All experiments had N = 3. Values are expressed as mean ± SEM.
Asterisks (*) indicate statistically significant change in MFI between WT and
FNcKO at a PCS or between two PCS time points.