Exogenous Sox11K91A leads to more RGC death than Sox11 in vivo. Control AAV2-GFP-Ctrl, AAV2-Sox11, or AAV2-Sox11K91A were injected intravitreally in control eyes and in eyes two weeks before optic nerve crush. Two weeks after injection in controls, or two weeks after optic nerve crush (four weeks after injection), eyes were harvested and retinas flat-mounted and immunostained against RGC-specific marker RBPMS (A). Both Sox11 and Sox11K91A significantly increased RGC death in sham (B) and optic nerve crush (C) eyes, with Sox11K91A showing significantly greater effect than wild-type Sox11 (N ≥ 4 experimental replicates, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, by one-way ANOVA with post hoc t test with Tukey correction; mean ± SEM shown; scale bar: 100 μm).