Figure 7. Established hypertension alone or in combination with diabetes stimulates JNK stress pathway and impairs the survival Akt pathway. A: Representative image for western blot analysis of retinal phosphorylated-Jun N-terminal kinase (pJNK) protein expression in the established stage of spontaneous hypertensive rats (SHR) and diabetic spontaneous hypertensive rats (SHR+D) compared to control wistar group (W). B: Statistical analysis showed that activation of pJNK was higher by threefold in the SHR group that was increased to 8.35 fold in the combined SHR+D group relative to the control W group (n=3, *p<0.05). C: Representative image for western blot analysis of retinal phosphorylated-AKt (AKt) protein expression in the established stage of SHR and SHR+D compared to W. D: Statistical analysis showing that activation of pAkt tends to be inhibited by 0.3 fold in the SHR group and 0.4 fold in the combined SHR+D group relative to the control W group (n=3, p=0.19 and 0.26, respectively).