C57bl 6 tg pdgfra cre 1clc j

Three mouse strains were purchased from the Jackson Laboratory: wildtype (C57BL/6J) mice, male homozygous floxed Il6ra (B6;SJL-Il6ra^tm1.1Drew/J) mice, and female mice expressing a Müller-glial-cell-specific Cre recombinase (C57BL/6-Tg(Pdgfra-cre)1Clc/J). Male floxed Il6ra mice and female MGC-specific Pdgfra-Cre mice were crossed, and heterozygous female offspring expressing Cre were backcrossed to parental floxed Il6ra males to generate a colony of MGC-specific Il6ra^−/− (KO) mice. Littermate controls were housed separately for comparison with the KO, including homozygous Il6ra^fl/fl Cre-negative, heterozygous Il6ra^wt/fl Cre-positive, and Il6ra^wt/wt Cre-positive mice. Knockout mice characterized in this study were maintained in a heterozygous state for Cre to exclude any possible confounding dosage effect. This study was conducted in accordance with the ARVO Statement for the Use of Animals in Ophthalmic and Vision Research and the Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines. All resources and efforts were used to ensure the safe and humane treatment of animals used in the study to minimize any possible suffering during experimental procedures and euthanasia. The animal protocol (Protocol #2014-0676) was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at Augusta University.