FIGURE 6.

Analysis of epithelial, cortical fiber, and nuclear fiber protein samples by capillary electrophoresis. Representative gel bands for β-actin (∼49 kDa) and total protein profiles (12–230 kDa) from each fraction are presented in pseudo-lane views. Normal wild-type (+/+) control lenses are compared to knockout (−/−) lenses. All mice were littermates and 4 months old. (A) Representative electropherogram of β-actin peaks from the epithelial cell fraction is plotted for control (+/+) and knockout (−/−) samples. The β-actin protein amount normalized to total protein is plotted on the dot plots with lines showing the average and standard deviation. The knockout samples showed increased amount of β-actin in the epithelial cells. *, p < 0.05. (B,C) Representative electropherograms of β-actin in cortical fibers and nuclear fibers from control and knockout lenses. Dot plots show the average and standard deviation for the normalized amount of β-actin in each sample. There is no difference in β-actin levels in control vs. knockout lenses in the cortical fiber and nuclear fiber fractions.