Fig. 6

Timecourse of damage to cone photoreceptors. a Anti-Cone arrestin (green) stains cone photoreceptor, inner segments (yellow arrow) and pedicles (green arrow) in an uninfected mouse. Anti-PrP antibody D13, stains PrPC (magenta) at the base of cone pedicles in the OPL (purple arrow). Autofluorescence is also present in the OS. b At 67 dpi cone arrestin and PrP are distributed similarly to uninfected retina (magenta arrow). c Small deposits of PrPSc are present in the IS at 104 dpi and are associated with cones (arrows). d At 118 dpi, the number of cones is reduced (green), most cone pedicles have disappeared from the OPL and the remaining cones are dystrophic (yellow arrow), missing their outer segments. PrPSc is widespread in the IS and ONL. e Few cones (green) remain at 131 dpi, pedicles (arrow) are much smaller in size and associated with dense clumps of PrPSc (arrowhead). f Cones are not detectable at 162 dpi, and ONL is 2–3 nuclei thick, suggesting rod photoreceptors have mostly died. A macrophage or microglial cell (yellow arrow) containing PrPSc is present in the remnants of the OS. Scale bar in a = 20 µm, applicable to all images