Fig. 2: Marcks overexpression in RGCs induces significant and persistent optic nerve regeneration.

A Top: experimental timeline. Bottom: representative image of optic nerve showing that overexpression of Marcks in RGCs induced drastic optic nerve regeneration 2 and 4 weeks after optic nerve crush. The right columns showed enlarged images of nerves at 500, 1000, 1500, and 2000 μm distal to the crush sites marked by white boxes on the left. Scale bar: 200 μm. *: crush sites. B Quantification of axon regeneration in (A). ****p < 0.0001, ***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05, ns no significance. n = 6–9 mice in each group. C Representative images of retinal sections from intact retina or injured retina 2 and 4 weeks after optic nerve crush stained with RBPMS. Scale bar: 20 μm. D Quantification of RGC survival in (C) showing that Marcks overexpression did not affect RGC survival, while fewer RGC survived for 4 weeks after optic nerve crush compared to 2 weeks. ****p < 0.0001, ns no significance. RGCs were analyzed from at least 7 non-adjacent retinal sections for each animal, from 4 mice per group.