Figure 1. Relationship of ARMS2 and HTRA1 expression in the human retina to the genotypes at 10q26. A: Schematic representation of positions of polymorphic variants at chromosome 10q26. White boxes indicate exons and gray shows translated regions. Numbers indicate the nucleotide position in NT_030059.12 (NCBI Reference Sequence). B-E: Gene expression in the human retina. We investigated the effect of AMD-associated variants near ARMS2 and HTRA1 genes on expression levels of ARMS2 and HTRA1 in human retina samples. Fold changes in expression of the target genes (ARMS2, HTRA1, HPRT1, and GAPDH) relative to the internal control gene (rRNA) were correlated to the genotypes of four polymorphisms at 10q26. The samples were analyzed after qRT–PCR reactions performed in quadruplicate with Taqman gene expression or SYBR Green assays. The fold change average in expression of the target gene was calculated using the 2^-ddCt method; ddCt=(C_t,Target - C_t,rRNA)_experiment - (C_t,Target - C_t,rRNA)_reference. Gene expressions in wild-type (with common variants at the four loci) older normal retinas were used as a reference. Black unique symbols (e.g., triangle, square, diamond, dash, X’s cross, circle) indicate individual sample changes, and white square shows the average. Abbreviations: Avg. represents average; N represents number of samples with a given genotype; P represents polymorphism (P/P represents homozygous; P/- represents heterozygous change. Variants are in the left column).