Fig. 3

Vascular endothelial MR contributes to CNV. a Systemic spironolactone significantly reduces CNV fluorescein angiographic (FA) grades (p < 0.001) as well as CNV volume (p = 0.0348) as compared to control mice. CNV were labeled with FITC-dextran (green). Infrared (IR) images show up all the laser burns in the fundus. b Cell-type-specific MR deletion from endothelial cells using the VE-Cadherin promoter (Vecadh-MR-KO) reduces CNV leakage on FA (p = 0.0041) and decreases the volume of CNV labeled with FITC-dextran (green) in mice (p = 0.0434). IR images show up all the laser burns. Bar: 100 µm (a, b). FA Data are expressed as the incidence of CNV angiographic grades of the total laser impacts in each group. CNV volumes are expressed as mean ± SEM of the average CNV size per mouse. n represents the number of mice. Linear mixed model was used for statistical analyses. *p < 0.05. c In a model of corneal neovascularization using Vecadh-MR-KO mice, a reduction in corneal neovessels labeled with FITC-dextran was observed compared to control mice. Quantification of the neovascular surface on mosaic images confirms a significant decrease in the neovascularization/whole corneal area ratio in Vecadh-MR-KO mice. Data are expressed as mean ± SEM. n represents the number of mice. Non-parametric Mann–Whitney U-test was used. **p < 0.01