THE INTERMEDIATE FILAMENT COMPLEMENT OF THE RETINA - A COMPARISON BETWEEN DIFFERENT MAMMALIAN-SPECIES

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  • 1 January 1984
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 33  (1) , 95-104
Abstract
The intermediate filament expression of the various cell types in the fully differentiated neural retina from rat, mouse, rabbit, guinea pig, cow, pig and cat were compared. Many cell types had an intermediate filament complement conserved across species boundaries, such as Mueller cells and retinal ganglion cells. In some species (rabbit, guinea pig, and cow), GFA (glial fibrillary acidic)-positive retinal astrocytes were not seen although such profiles were clearly visible in the remainder. Horizontal cell staining proved to be extremely species-variable. In rat and mouse the processes of these cells were identically displayed with antibodies to vimentin and all 3 neurofilament triplet proteins. In cow they decorated with antibodies to vimentin and antibodies to the 2 lower MW neurofilament proteins alone, whereas in pig, rabbit and guinea pig all 3 neurofilament proteins but not vimentin were present. Cat horizontal cells stained for all three neurofilament proteins, some finer processes being additionally stainable with vimentin. A futher surprise was the visualization of profiles positive only for the 2 lower MW neurofilament proteins in the inner nuclear layer of both rabbit and guinea pig retina but not the other species. The implications of these results were discussed.