Fig. 3

Protein expression of IL6/gp130 signaling pathway in mice one day after RD. a In retinas (n = 6 mice for each group), gp130 expression increased non-significantly after RD and was consistently expressed in all treatment groups. In contrast, membrane-bound IL6Rα was undetectable (note very high IL6Rα expression in liver). The key regulatory proteins of IL6 signaling, SOCS3, SHP2, p-STAT3, p-Akt and p-Erk1/2, all showed no significant changes in the retina one day after RD (one-way ANOVA, Tukey’s test). b In aqueous/vitreous humor samples (n = 10 mice for each group), p-STAT3 was up-regulated 9-fold (compared with normal, ** p < 0.01), anti-gp130 further promoted this phosphorylation (13-fold higher than normal, *** p < 0.001; compared with untreated RD1 group, * p < 0.05); while IL6 KO weakened this upregulation (4-fold, compared with normal, * p < 0.05; compared with untreated RD1 group, ** p < 0.01). p-Erk1/2 was also up-regulated after RD (4-fold, compared with normal, ** p < 0.01), while anti-gp130 (0.96 fold, compared with untreated RD1 group, ** p < 0.01) and IL6 KO (1.98 fold, compared with untreated RD1 group, * p < 0.05) both inhibited p-Erk1/2 activation. Note: the intensities of SOCS3, SHP2, p-STAT3, p-Akt and p-Erk1/2 bands in all 3 detached groups were normalized to their intensities of normal group, and then the normalized folds were analyzed using one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey-Kramer adjustments