Retinal Ganglion Cells: Global Number, Density and Vulnerability to Glaucomatous Injury in Common Laboratory Mice

How many RBPMS+ retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) does a standard C57BL/6 laboratory mouse have on average and is this number substrain- or sex-dependent? Do RGCs of (European) C57BL/6J and -N mice show a different intrinsic vulnerability upon glaucomatous injury? Global RGC numbers and densities of common laboratory mice were previously determined via axon counts, retrograde tracing or BRN3A immunohistochemistry. Here, we report the global RGC number and density by exploiting the freely available tool RGCode to automatically count RGC numbers and densities on entire retinal wholemounts immunostained for the pan-RGC marker RBPMS. The intrinsic vulnerability of RGCs from different substrains to glaucomatous injury was evaluated upon introduction of the microbead occlusion model, followed by RBPMS counts, retrograde tracing and electroretinography five weeks post-injury. We demonstrate that the global RGC number and density varies between substrains, yet is not sex-dependent. C57BL/6J mice have on average 46K +/- 2K RBPMS+ RGCs per retina, representing a global RGC density of 3268 +/- 177 RGCs/mm(2). C57BL/6N mice, on the other hand, have on average less RBPMS+ RGCs (41K +/- 3K RGCs) and a lower density (3018 +/- 189 RGCs/mm(2)). The vulnerability of the RGC population of the two C57BL/6 substrains to glaucomatous injury did, however, not differ in any of the interrogated parameters.