Figure 4 of Chamberlain, Mol Vis 2008; 14:983-991.


Figure 4. Effect of the nitric oxide donor SNP on immunoreactivity for αSMA and fibronectin. Sparsely covered explants were cultured for nine days in the control medium (A-C) or in the control medium containing SNP (D-J). αSMA (B and E) and fibronectin (C and F) were then immunolocalized in fixed whole mounts of representative explants by a double-labeling technique with Hoechst counter-staining of nuclei (A and D). Regions of the lens capsule that became denuded of cells during culture are indicated by an asterisk. The occasional small patches of cells that remained in explants cultured in the control medium alone (A) expressed strong reactivity for αSMA (B) and fibronectin (C). Reactivity for the latter was present throughout the explant including denuded regions of capsule where it was often present in fibrillar form (C, arrowheads). The region indicated by the arrow in A is given at higher magnification in the inset to show the fragmentation of nuclei. When SNP was included during culture (D), specific reactivity for αSMA (E) and fibronectin (F) was not detectable. The bar represents 50 μm in A-F and 20 μm in inset in A. SNP stands for sodium nitroprusside, and αSMA stands for α-smooth muscle actin.