Fig 1.
Vertical cryostat sections of FINDT3 and wildtype mouse retinae stained for β-galactosidase.
Top row: X-gal staining, blue dots indicate β-gal-positive cells. In adult FINDT3 mice (left) staining occurs in the ganglion cell layer (GCL) and inner nuclear layer (INL), but not in the outer nuclear layer (ONL). In FINDT3 mice at postnatal day 10 (p10, middle) staining mainly occurs in the GCL with only few labeled cells in the INL. There is no staining in the adult wildtype control (WT, right). Bottom row: Staining with the mouse monoclonal antibody against β-gal. As in the X-gal staining, adult FINDT3 mice show two bands of stained cells in the GCL and INL, respectively. At p10 staining mainly occurs in the GCL with few labeled cells in the INL. In all these immunolabeled sections, blood vessels are also stained by the anti-mouse secondary antibody (some arrowed); in the wildtype control, the only labeled structures are blood vessels. OPL, outer plexiform layer; IPL, inner plexiform layer. Images were acquired with a Zeiss Axiophot 2 microscope (top row) and a Zeiss Axioplan 2 microscope (bottom row). The scale bar applies to all images.
Fig 2.
Double immunostaining of a vertical cryostat section of adult FINDT3 mouse retina for β-gal and GABAergic amacrine cells.
β-gal label (a) colocalizes with the GABA label (b) in some somata in the INL (arrows point to examples), but many GABAergic amacrine cells show no β-gal signal, as evident in the merge (c). Images were acquired with an Olympus FluoView 1000 laser scanning microscope.
Fig 3.
Double immunostaining of a vertical cryostat section of adult FINDT3 mouse retina for β-gal and glycinergic amacrine cells.
β-gal label (a) colocalizes with the glycine transporter-1 (GlyT1) label (b) in some somata in the INL (arrows point to examples), but many glycinergic amacrine cells show no β-gal signal, as evident in the merge (c). Images were acquired with an Olympus FluoView 1000 laser scanning microscope.
Fig 4.
Double immunostaining of a vertical cryostat section of adult FINDT3 mouse retina for β-gal and AII amacrine cells.
β-gal label (a) colocalizes with the Dab1 label (b) in most somata, but some AII cells show no β-gal signal, as evident in the merge (c). Two β-gal-negative AII somata are marked by arrows. Images were acquired with a Zeiss Axioplan 2 microscope.
Fig 5.
Double immunostaining of a vertical cryostat section of adult FINDT3 mouse retina for β-gal and cholinergic amacrine cells.
β-gal label (a) colocalizes with the ChAT label (b) in a few somata in the INL and GCL (arrows), but the majority of cholinergic amacrine cells show no β-gal signal, as evident in the merge (c). Images were acquired with a Zeiss Axioplan 2 microscope.
Fig 6.
Double immunostaining of a vertical cryostat section of adult FINDT3 mouse retina for β-gal and rod bipolar cells.
β-gal label (a) does not colocalize with the PKCα label of rod bipolar cells (b), as shown in the merge (c). The magenta signal among the rod bipolar cell somata in the upper INL represents blood vessel staining. Images were acquired with a Zeiss Axioplan 2 microscope.
Fig 7.
Double immunostaining of a vertical cryostat section of adult FINDT3 mouse retina for β-gal and Müller glia cells.
β-gal label (a) does not colocalize with the glutamine synthetase label of Müller cells (b), as shown in the merge (c). The Müller cell processes are stained throughout the retinal layers, the tier of Müller cell somata in the INL is marked by a horizontal arrow. Images were acquired with a Zeiss Axioplan 2 microscope.
Fig 8.
Retinal wholemounts of FINDT3 mice stained with X-gal.
Blue dots indicate stained cells in the GCL and INL. Left: In the adult retina, the density of stained cells is high in central retina around the optic nerve head and decreases towards the periphery. The density decline is more pronounced in the dorsal part of the retina than in the ventral part. Right: At postnatal day p10, the retina shows basically the same density gradient of stained cells as in the adult. D, dorsal; V, ventral; T, temporal; N, nasal. The scale bar applies to both retinae. Images were acquired with a Zeiss Axiophot 2 microscope; the left image is a montage of 20 frames, the right image of 9 frames.
Fig 9.
Higher power micrographs from wholemounted FINDT3 retinae stained with X-gal.
For the adult mouse (left), the GCL and INL are shown separately as they are on different focal planes. For the p10 mouse (right) only the GCL is shown. Dorsal and ventral fields are from far peripheral retina. The scale bar applies to all images. Images were acquired with a Zeiss Axiophot 2 microscope.
Fig 10.
Population densities of ganglion cell layer (GCL) neurons along the dorso-ventral axis of adult mouse retina intersecting the optic nerve head.
The blue line gives the densities of X-gal-stained GCL cells in FINDT3 retina. The black line gives the densities of GCL neurons from [32]. The grey area shows the density range of GCL neurons reported for three retinae by [33]. For details see text. Eccentricity ‘0’ refers to the position of the optic nerve head.