Fig. 1
Assessing the effects of rAAV intra-vitreal delivery of mFKN or sFKN in the non-diabetic (ND) retina. A Experimental design to investigate the effects of intra-vitreal delivery of rAAV–mFKN or rAAV–sFKN to the retina. FKNKO mice were given one intra-vitreal injection in the right eye of rAAV–mFKN or rAAV–sFKN (200 ng/mL). Two weeks after the intra-vitreal delivery of rAAV–mFKN or rAAV–sFKN, hyperglycemia was induced via intra-peritoneal streptozotocin (STZ) injections once daily for 5 days. To assess visual acuity, mice were shaped and placed in a test arena with high- and low-complexity visual cues, featuring a two-choice discrimination task. Two days before euthanasia, mice received intra-peritoneal lipopolysaccharide (LPS) injections once daily for 2 days, and tissues were collected at 4 weeks and 10 weeks of diabetes. B Confocal image of whole retina flat mount stained for cell nuclei (DAPI, blue), fractalkine (FKN, green), and NeuN (Red) (Scale bar; 20 µm). C Confocal image of cryosectioned retina stained for FKN (red, top panel) and endogenous rAAV–GFP virus delivered by intra-vitreal (green, bottom panel) (Scale bar; 50 µm). D Quantification of FKN (pg/mL) by ELISA in ND wild-type (WT) and PBS-treated FKNKO, 4-week diabetic and 10-week diabetic mice treated with rAAV–mFKN (green bars) or rAAV–sFKN (blue bars). Data shown as mean ± SD, n = 5–8 mice per group, where each dot represents an individual mouse across two experimental replicates. *p < 0.05 using Student’s t test, Welch’s correction