Figure 8. Established hypertension causes and diabetes exacerbates retinal microvascular degeneration. A: Representative images for retinal trypsin digests stained with periodic acid-Schiff and hematoxylin (PASH) to assess the development of acellular capillaries in the established stage of spontaneous hypertensive rats (SHR) and diabetic spontaneous hypertensive rats (SHR+D) compared to control wistar group (W). Acellular capillaries were defined as capillary-sized blood vessel tubes having no nuclei anywhere along their length (arrows). B: Statistical analysis for the average number of acellular capillaries per group, showed higher numbers in the SHR and SHR+D groups by 2.8 and 5.6 folds, respectively, when compared to control W group (n=4–5; *p<0.05). The SHR+D group was higher than the SHR group by twofolds (#p<0.05). The SHR+D group was higher than the SHR group by twofold (#p<0.05).