Fig. 1

Cre-mediated recombination selectively depletes TLR4 on endothelial cells. Representative retinal whole mounts of Tek^CretdTomato mice stained with Iba-1 (green) in naïve mice (A–C) and LPS-challenged mice (E–G). tdTomato (magenta) was selectively expressed in retinal blood vessels and no co-localization with Iba-1 was detected. The yellow squares in C and G are magnified in D and H, respectively. Scale bars: 100 μm. Representative dot plots of single, live, TIE2^posTLR4^pos cells in the retinas of naïve Tek^Cre−negTlr4^loxP/loxP and Tek^Cre−posTlr4^loxP/loxP mice (I, J). The majority of TIE2^pos cells (72.7%) in the Tek^Cre−negTlr4^loxP/loxP retinas express TLR4, while in the retinas of Tek^Cre−posTlr4^loxP/loxP mice only 6.4% of TIE2^pos cells are TLR4^pos (K; n = 3 mice per group). The data were analyzed with 2-tailed unpaired t-test, ***p < 0.001)