Comparison of wild-type and Mfsd2a KO eye cups. Mus musculus

Eye photoreceptor membrane discs in outer rod segments are highly enriched in the visual pigment rhodopsin and the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenote (DHA). The eye acquires DHA from blood, but transporters for DHA uptake across the blood-retinal barrier (BRB) or retinal pigment epithelium have not been identified. Mfsd2a is a newly described sodium-dependent lysophosphatidylcholine symporter expressed at the BRB. Microarrays were used to determine difference in gene expression between wild-type and Mfsd2a KO eye cups. Overall design: RNA was extracted from eye cups from postnatal day 13 wild-type and Mfsd2a KO mice. Equal amounts of RNA from 6 wild-type eye cups were pooled for the wild-type sample, or 6 Mfsd2a KO eye cups were pooled for the Mfsd2a KO sample. Microarray profiling was done on pooled samples with a RIN cut-off of 7.0 using Mouse 430 2.0 arrays (Affymetrix).