Fig. 3: SNS inactivation increases tear secretion of dry eye mice. | Nature Communications

Fig. 3: SNS inactivation increases tear secretion of dry eye mice.

From: A gatekeeper sympathetic control of lacrimal tear secretion and dry eye onset through the NA-Adra1a-Ucp2 pathway

Fig. 3

a Schematic diagram of dry eye mice with 6-OHDA and SCGx treatment. Created in BioRender. Wang, Q. (2025) https://BioRender.com/xa8jatx. b Changes of tear secretion (n = 8 mice per group. 3 d 6-OHDA vs Vehicle P = 0.0501, SCGx vs Vehicle P = 0.0100, 7 d 6-OHDA vs Vehicle P = 0.0020, SCGx vs Vehicle P = 0.0001). c Changes of corneal fluorescein staining (n = 8 mice per group. 6-OHDA vs Vehicle P < 0.0001, SCGx vs Vehicle P < 0.0001). d Schematic diagram of Th-DTR mice treated with DT and wild type mice with guanethidine (Gua). Created in BioRender. Wang, Q. (2025) https://BioRender.com/57rh5q8. e Changes of tear secretion (n = 6 mice per group. 3 d Th-DTR vs Vehicle P = 0.0016, Gua vs Vehicle P = 0.0148, 7 d Th-DTR vs Vehicle P = 0.0033, Gua vs Vehicle P = 0.0154). f Changes of corneal fluorescein staining (n = 8 mice per group. Th-DTR vs Vehicle P < 0.0001, Gua vs Vehicle P = 0.0001). g Schematic diagram of 6-OHDA and scopolamine (SCOP)-pretreated mice with noradrenaline (NA) or Adra1 agonist A61603 infusion. Created in BioRender. Wang, Q. (2025) https://BioRender.com/50l00lu. h Changes of tear secretion (NaCl: n = 8 mice, NA or A61603: n = 6 mice, 3 d NA vs NaCl P = 0.0288, A61603 vs NaCl P = 0.0627, 7 d NA vs NaCl P = 0.0059, A61603 vs NaCl P = 0.0411). i Changes of corneal fluorescein staining (n = 8 mice per group. NA vs NaCl P = 0.0010, A61603 vs NaCl P = 0.0003). j Transcriptomic analysis. Six lacrimal glands from three mice were pooed as one sample, n = 3 samples per group. The significance of differential gene expression between two groups is assessed by the Wald test under the negative binomial distribution model. k KEGG analysis of the up-regulated and down-regulated genes, the method for calculating P values is based on the hypergeometric distribution. l Quantitative PCR analysis (n = 3 mice per group. Prb1 P = 0.0480, Amy1 P = 0.0199, TNF-α P = 0.0403, IL-1β P = 0.0482). Data are shown as mean ± SEM. The significance of differences was detected using one-way ANOVA followed by Dunnett’s test at each timepoint (b, c, e, f, h, i), and unpaired two-sided Student’s t test (l), *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ns, not significant. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

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