Figure 1. Central nervous system-specific 130 kDa isoform of vesicular glutamate transporter 3 that is undetectable in DBA/2J retina. Western blot analysis of C57BL/6J mouse lysates demonstrate expression of an expected vesicular glutamate transporter 3 (VGLUT3) 55 kDa immunoreactive protein band in brain, heart, liver, kidney and retina tissue, and a strong 130 kDa band restricted to the central nervous system (brain and retina tissue; A). Immunoreactivity of the 130 kDa VGLUT3 band is undetectable in DBA/2J retinas, while present in DBA/2J brains (B). The 55 kDa VGLUT3 isoform serves as an internal loading control. Expression levels of the 55 kDa VGLUT3 protein in all tested tissue samples (including the retina) were comparable to control C57BL/6J animal tissues (B). All wells were loaded with 20 μg of protein from age-matched eight-month-old animals.