Figure 3. Effect of diabetes on kainate receptor subunits expression. Total protein extracts (A) and total RNA extracts (B) were prepared from rat retinas with one, four, and 12 weeks diabetic rat retinas (black bars) and from age-matched controls (white bars). A: Total retinal extracts were assayed for GluR6/7 subunits immunoreactivity by western blot analysis. Representative western blots are presented above the graph. The densitometry of each band was analyzed. The results are expressed as percentage of age-matched controls and are presented as the mean±SEM, for the indicated number of animals. In each western blot analysis, a reprobing for detection of α-tubulin was performed to confirm that similar amounts of protein were applied to the gel. The asterisk indicates a p<0.05, significantly different from control, using the two-tailed Student’s t-test. B: The transcript levels of GluR7 subunit were analyzed by qPCR. The results represent the normalized expression levels for GluR7 subunit, as explained in Methods, and are presented as the mean±SEM, for the indicated number of animals. The asterisk indicates a p<0.05, significantly different from control, using the two-tailed Student’s t-test.