Figure 6

Relative retinal progenitor gene expression in AF-treated cultures (10%, 20%, 30%), FBS-treated cultures (10%) and DMEM/F12 (control)-treated cultures. RPE cell preparation and RNA extraction were performed as described in the methods. Relative gene expression was determined by quantitative real time PCR and normalized against GAPDH mRNA levels. The bar graphs show the normalized expression ratio in AF-treated RPE cells adjusted to FBS-treated cells. Left: Relative PAX6 expression. Note the dose-dependent increase of PAX6 expression in AF-treated RPE cultures and higher PAX6 expression in AF-treated cultures compared with FBS-treated cultures. The slow up-regulation of PAX6 expression may be evidence of an increase in the number of retinal progenitor cells. PAX6 is up-regulated in AF (30%) control cultures, which may be an indicator that these cultures contain neuro-retinal terminally differentiated cells. Center: Relative CHX10 expression Right: Relative VSX-1 expression. Note the low level of VSX-1 expression in comparison to expression of CHX10. Each value represents the meanSEM of 2 independent experiments in at least triplicate.