Figure 2. Early stage hypertension and diabetes stimulate activation of the Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) stress pathway. A: Representative image for western blot analysis of retinal phosphorylated- pJNK protein expression in early stage spontaneous hypertensive rats (SHR) and diabetic spontaneous hypertensive rats (SHR+D) compared to control wistar group (W). B: Statistical analysis showing that activation of pJNK was 1.75 fold higher in the SHR group that was increased to 1.9 fold in the combined SHR+D group relative to the control W group (n=3-4, * p<0.05).