Figure 5

Epithelial cells from Spry-deficient murine lenses undergo an EMT, resulting in anterior subcapsular fibrotic plaques. Representative sections of postnatal-d-80 (A, A’, C, C’) or postnatal-d-10 (B, B’, D, D’) WT mouse lenses (A, A’, B, B’) or lenses deficient for all alleles of Spry1 and Spry2 (Spry^fl/fl/Spry2^fl/fl) by using either MLR10-Cre (C, C) or Le-Cre (D, D’), immunolabelled for either α-sma (A’, C’) or E-cadherin (B’, D’) with cell nuclei counter-stained with Hoechst dye (A–D). Compared to WT lens epithelia that are nonreactive for α-sma (A’), lens cells deficient for Spry express α-sma, undergoing an EMT to form anterior subcapsular plaques (C’). Consistent with this finding, the normal membrane distribution of E-cadherin in lens epithelial cells of WT mice (B’) is reduced and lost in Spry-deficient cells that multilayer as they undergo an EMT (D’). Scale bar, 50 µm,