Fundus images illustrating three shorter promoters used with AAV2 that resulted in little or no visible GFP expression in normal retinas (
A,
C,
E), but visible GFP expression in eyes with altered retinas (
B,
D,
F). (
A,
B) Neuronal promoter, hSYN, produced no visible GFP expression after 4.5 months (
A), but when injected into an eye with ganglion cell loss, (
B) an annulus of GFP expression was seen in less than 2 months (data not shown; instead a later fundus image after 11 month is shown for better image quality). The transduction pattern in (
B) is similar to that shown in
Figure 1A, but the intensity of GFP expression is lower. (
C,
D) Shortened hCx36sh promoter resulted in no visible GFP expression after 4.5 months (
C; for comparison, <2 months was typically needed for transduction by the full-length hCx36 promoter). However, when the promoter was injected into an eye with ganglion cell loss (
D), a faint annulus of GFP expression around the fovea center was visible less than 3.5 months when the first fundus image was acquired (data not shown; instead a later fundus image after 4.5 months was shown for better image quality.) The transduction pattern in (
D) was similar that shown in
Figure 1A, but the intensity of GFP expression was lower. (
E,
F) Shortened CBA promoter (smCBA) resulted in no GFP expression after 15 months when injected into normal retina (
E; for comparison, <10 months was needed for transduction by full-length CBA promoter). However, when injected into an eye that received enzymatic vitreolysis with microplasmin (
F), GFP expression in fovea was visible in less than 4.5 months, when the first fundus image was acquired (data not shown; instead a later fundus image after 10 months is shown for better image quality). The transduction pattern in (
F) was similar to that shown in
Figure 4A.