Fig. 10

Anterograde transport persists during initial stages of optic nerve degeneration. Three-month old C57BL/6 J mice were injected unilaterally with Veh and Dex once a week for 5 or 8 weeks and axonal anterograde transport deficits were tracked through entire visual pathway including optic nerve and superior colliculus (SC) using fluorescently tagged CTB. CTB Alexa Fluor 555 (Red) and CTB Alexa Fluor 488 (Green) were used to tract transport deficits in Veh and Dex-injected eyes respectively. a Representative DIC images connecting eyes to the brain from 5 weeks injected mice show an active transportation of CTB in both Veh and Dex-injected eyes. b Representative DIC images show accumulation of CTB (green fluorescence) at the ONH in 8 weeks Dex-injected eyes compared to contralateral Veh-injected eyes (CTB-red fluorescence). c Serial frontal sections of brain confirm a loss of axonal transport of CTB with mild deficits in the posterior SC regions in 5 weeks Dex-injected eyes compared to contralateral Veh-injected eyes (n = 5). d Serial frontal sections of brain confirm the axonal transport deficits of CTB in SC regions corresponding to 8 weeks Dex-injected eyes compared to contralateral Veh injected eyes indicating complete axonal anterograde transport deficits during later stages of axonal damage (n = 5)