UF008/SAP kills ipRGCs without apparent damage to general retinal morphology.

<p>UF008/SAP does not induce changes in gross retinal morphology. Eyes injected with 800 ng/eye of UF008/SAP conjugate did not differ ( 2-way ANOVA with Bonferroni post-test) from the PBS-injected control eyes in their relative (A) ONL or (B) INL thickness. (open bars, control eyes; black bars, UF008/SAP-injected). C) Cryostat sections through control retina (left column) and through UF008/SAP treated retina (right column). Red label (all images) - Melanopsin immunoreactive (IR) cells (*) and processes (arrowheads); Green label (Upper Row) - GFAP-IR glia at the base of the ganglion cell layer; Green label (Middle Row) - CALB-IR cells (arrows) in the outer and inner nuclear layers; Green label (Bottom row) - ChAT-IR amacrine cells (arrows) in the inner nuclear and ganglion cell layers between which are the two ChAT-IR terminal zones of the inner plexiform layer. Blue label - The nuclear stain, DAPI, most clearly reveals cells in the outer nuclear layer of the upper and lower images. Note the absence of melanopsin-IR staining in treated retinas (right column). Abbreviations of retinal layers: g – ganglion cell; inl – inner nuclear; ipl – inner plexiform (on and off sublayers); onl – outer nuclear; opl – outer plexiform; p – photoreceptor. Bar = 20 µm.