The intermediate filament complement of the retina: a comparison between different mammalian species

We compared the intermediate filament expression of the various cell types in the fully differentiated neural retina from rat, mouse, rabbit, guinea pig, cow, pig, and cat. Many cell types had an intermediate filament complement conserved across species boundaries, such as Müller cells and retinal ganglion cells. In some species (rabbit, guinea pig, and cow), however, we were unable to visualize GFA (glial fibrillary acidic)-positive retinal astrocytes, although such profiles were clearly visible in the remainder. Horizontal cell staining proved to be extremely species-variable. In rat and mouse the processes of these cells were identically displayed with antibodies to vimentin and all three neurofilament triplet proteins. In cow they decorated with antibodies to vimentin and antibodies to the two lower molecular weight neurofilament proteins alone, whereas in pig, rabbit and guinea pig all three neurofilament proteins but not vimentin were present. Finally cat horizontal cells stained for all three neurofilament proteins, some finer processes being additionally stainable with vimentin. A further surprise was the visualization of profiles positive only for the two lower molecular weight neurofilament proteins in the inner nuclear layer of both rabbit and guinea pig retina but not the other species. The implications of these results will be discussed.