Increased lesion severity in Robo4 KO mice is due to higher VEGF levels and signaling.

WT and R4 KO mice were infected with HSV-1 RE in one eye and corneas were collected and pooled for analysis by WB and by Q-RT-PCR. (A) Relative fold change in mRNA expression of VEGF was examined and compared between WT and R4 KO animals. Data represent means ± SEM (n = 2 and each sample is representative of 6 corneas). ***p ≤ 0.001, **p ≤ 0.01, *p ≤ 0.05. Statistical levels of significance were analyzed by t test. (B) WB analysis of corneal lysates. R4 KO animals have increased VEGF signaling showed by increased SRC phosphorylation at day 15 pi. (n = 3 and each sample is representative of 5 corneas).