Figure 8
Gene silencing was not regulated by HDAC3 in RGCs post ONC. AAV2-Cre/GFP was injected intravitreally into Rosa26-Tomatofl/fl and Hdac3fl/fl eyes 4 weeks prior to ONC. Additional mice were injected intraperitoneally with either DMSO or TSA, 24 hours prior to ONC. Changes in gene expression for each group of treated mice were compared to mice that had received no injection of AAV2-Cre/GFP or HDAC inhibitor (no injection group). Transcript abundance of ganglion cell genes Thy1, Sncg, Nrn1, Fem1c, and Nfl, measured by qPCR, showed marked decreases in non-injected and DMSO injected as well as AAV2-Cre/GFP injected Rosa26-Tomatofl/fl and Hdac3fl/fl retinas at 5 days following ONC. No significant difference was observed among the change in transcript abundance between Hdac3 cKO and the Rosa26-Tomatofl/fl mice in this study (P ≥ 0.05). However, mice injected intraperitoneally with TSA 24 hours prior to ONC exhibited significantly higher levels of mRNA abundance (*P ≤ 0.05) of RGC specific genes at 5 days following ONC when compared to uninjected and DMSO injected mice.