The role of Egr1 and FosB in the 6 hour injury response

This trancriptome analysis reports genes that are differentially expressed in wildtype (WT) lens epithelial cells (LEC) between 6 hours and zero hours after injury, and between Egr1 (E1) or FosB (FB) null LEC and wildtype LEC at zero hours (0H) and at 6 hours (6H) after injury. Overall design: For each genotype (Wildtype, Egr1 Null, and FosB Null), injury experiments were conducted in mice according to the following procedure. The fiber cell mass was surgically removed from the lens of one eye via an anterior incision, leaving the lens capsule and associated LEC inside the eye. Six hours later the procedure was repeated on the second eye, the mouse was sacrifieced and both lens capsules were harvested. Each biological sequencing replicate consisted of 5 capsules from one interval as described above. Three biological replicates were sequenced for each interval and genotype. FosB null LEC were generated by conditional deletion (cKO) of these genes in the lens from floxed alleles using cre recombinase under the control of a lens-specific promoter (mlr10cre). Egr1 Null LEC were harvested from Egr1 null mice that were homozygous for a systemic Egr1 knockout generated by the insertion of a neo cassette into exon 2 causing an early stop codon and a truncated Egr1. All mice used in this study were between three and five months age. Samples were sequenced in September of 2021.