Fig. 8: Long-term efficacy of 8-AG in F344 rats.

The F344 rats were treated with 8-AG at 5 mg/kg bw daily in drinking water or with water only for 17 weeks starting at 23 months of age. SD-OCT and ERG were performed on rats at the endpoint at 27 months of age, followed by euthanasia for IHC. a, b The spidergrams for the thickness of OSIS and ONL, respectively, were measured from SD-OCT B-scans. c, d represent the temporal and nasal side of the retinae. Magenta squares, water-treated aged rats; and blue triangles, 8-AG-treated aged rats. c–e ERG response for scotopic a-wave (c), scotopic b-wave (d), and photopic b-wave (e) plotted as a function of flash intensity in semi-log format. f Representative immunofluorescence images of RHO (red) and Hoechst33342 for nucleus stain (blue) at central (SC&IC), equatorial (SE&IE), and peripheral (SP&IP) regions of the aged untreated and aged 8-AG treated rat retinae. g, h Spidergrams of RHO intensity in the OSIS (g) and ONL thickness (i), measured from IHC images shown in f. Data points and error bars are means ± SEMs. N = 2 for untreated retinae, N = 4 for 8-AG for treated retinae. This dataset has a low sample size because the average rat lifespan is 24 months, only one or two animals survived till 27 months for each group. Therefore, P values were not shown.