Figure 2. ROS cholesterol/fatty acid ratios in P23H and S334ter rats

Endogenous cholesterol/fatty acid ratios of rod outer segments were sensitive to retinal degeneration (A), but not to manipulation by dietary fatty acids (B). Total fatty acids and cholesterol of rod outer segments from wild type (WT) and transgenic rats carrying P23H and S334ter opsin mutations were subjected to gas and high pressure liquid chromatography. The rats were fed either safflower oil (SO; n-6 diet) or flaxseed oil (FO; n-3 diet) since Day 15 of gestation. As there were no differences due to diet (B), values in (A) were pooled for rats eating both diets. Bars represent the means; error bars represent standard deviation. Multivariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc Newman-Keuls test determined statistical significance (p<0.05).