Western blot analysis and quantification of RALDH1 and RALDH3 in postnatal human ocular tissues.

<p><b>(A)</b> Cytosol fractions from ocular tissues of donors aged 14, 49, and 50 years were immunblotted with anti-RALDH1 or anti-RALDH3. <i>Top panel</i>: RALDH1 (∼ 55–57 kDa) was abundantly expressed in the lens and choroid, moderately expressed in the sclera, and faintly detected in the retina and RPE. <i>Bottom Panel</i>: RALDH3 was not detected in postnatal ocular tissues at any of the ages examined. 3 μg total protein/lane was loaded on the blot. 1.25 μg recombinant human RALDH3 (R3) was loaded as a positive control. <b>(B)</b> Abundance of RALDH1 was measured as the integrated optical density (IOD) per 3 μg total protein of RALDH1-immunopositive bands. <b>(C)</b> Average RALDH1 abundance (± s.e.m.) in ocular tissues of all donors presented in (B) (n = 3). *<i>p</i> < 0.05, **<i>p</i> < 0.01, ***<i>p</i> < 0.001 (one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey-Kramer test for multiple comparisons).