The excised eyes from both FGFR2cKO- and control mice were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde, and 10-µm frozen cryosections were recovered using a cryostat (Leica Cryostat, Buffalo Grove, IL, USA) at the Core Facility of Vision Sciences Research Center of University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). The sections were blocked in normal bovine serum (5%), followed by overnight incubation in anti-Fgfr2 rabbit polyclonal antibody (Abcam, Waltham, MA, USA) at 1:100 dilution. The sections were washed three times in PBS and incubated with a secondary goat anti-rabbit Alexa Fluor 555-labeled antibody (Invitrogen, Grand Island, NY, USA). Next, the sections were washed three times in PBS, and nuclei were stained with (4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole, DAPI) (Invitrogen, Grand Island, NY, USA) for 10 minutes. After a final wash with PBS, the sections were mounted on slides with Fluoromount-G (Southern Biotech, Birmingham, AL, USA). Fluorescent microscopic analysis was performed using Zeiss Axioplan 2 Imaging System Microscope (Carl Zeiss Microscopy, Thornwood, NY, USA) at the Core facility of Vision Sciences Research Center at the UAB. The confocal imaging was conducted using Zeiss LSM 710 confocal microscope (High Resolution Imaging Facility, UAB), and multiple images were taken from three FGFR2cKO mice and three control mice. Fluorescence intensity was measured using Image J analysis. Similarly, immunohistochemical analyses were conducted for the following antibodies: (A) anti-collagen 1 rabbit monoclonal antibody (Cell Signaling, Danvers, MA, USA) at 1:100 dilutions, and (B) anti-fibronectin monoclonal antibody (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA) at 1:250 dilution. The secondary antibody used was goat anti-rabbit Alexa Flour 488-labeled antibody (Invitrogen, Grand Island, NY).