Fig. 5. Effects of binocular retinal injections of U0126. pERK staining in P5 rats is evident in all cells of the GCL injected with saline (A, n=3) but is strongly decreased after 60 minutes of U0126 treatment (B, n=4). (C) Control retinas with no primary antibody show background fluorescence. (D) Western blot analysis reveals that, at 48 hours after intravitreal injections of beads-U0126 (1 mM), pERK levels in the retina are decreased by 52±19% with respect to controls injected with beads-vehicle, Student's t-test, P<0.05 (C, control; T, U0126-treated). Each column is an average of six different samples. Each sample pools together two retinas. (E,F) In P5 rats, no differences in pERK levels within the dLGN are observed 48 hours after binocular injections of beads-vehicle (E, n=6) or beads-U0126 (F, n=6). (G-L) Eye-specific segregation in P9 rats that received binocular intravitreal injections of beads-U0126. (G,H) Both contralateral and ipsilateral projections are diffusely distributed in the dLGN. (J,K) The relative contralateral and ipsilateral areas of U0126-treated animals (n=7) are significantly larger than those of control animals (n=6), (Student's t-test, P<0.05, respectively). (I,L) The relative overlap area of U0126-treated animals is larger than that of control animals. Error bars depict the s.d. Dashed lines indicate the relative eye-specific areas in normal P9 rats. Scale bars: 25 µm for A,B,C; 50 µm for E,F; 200 µm for G,H,I.