Fig. 7
From: Retinal ganglion cells induce stem cell-derived neuroprotection via IL-12 to SCGF-β crosstalk
Overexpression of ngn2 protects endogenous and transplanted RGCs in vivo. A AAV2-ngn2-EGFP or AAV2-EGFP particles were intravitreally injected 2 weeks into adult mouse eyes 2 weeks before optic nerve crush. Retina explants were harvested and immunostained 2 weeks after the optic nerve crush. Surviving RGCs were labeled with RBPMS (red). B A significantly greater RBPMS+ RGC number was found on retina explants from the AAV-ngn2 treated group. C The EGFP and mCherry were used to label the entire transplanted and ngn2-overexpressing donor mouse RGCs, respectively. Ngn2-mCherry-overexpressing mouse RGCs that were transplanted into adult rat eyes shows significantly higher survival rates, compared with the negative control RGC transplant 1 week after transplantation in vivo. D & E Difference between transplanted RGC survival rates and average neurite lengths with and without ngn2 overespression was quantified. Donor RGCs overexpressing ngn2-mCherry grew significantly longer neurites than those from negative control-RGC transplantation in vivo. *P < 0.05, paired t-test. ONC, optic nerve crush; NC, negative control; OE, overexpression. Error bar denotes SD