Although neurofilament (NF)
antibodies have been used to visualize
ganglion cells and their axons in the retina, it is not known, however, how many
ganglion cells contain NF, and how the various NF subunits are distributed in the
ganglion cells. Moreover, it is not known whether displaced amacrine cells in the
ganglion cell layer are also labelled. In order to see whether NF
antibodies can be used as a specific marker for
ganglion cells,
antibodies raised against the low (NF-L), middle (NF-M) and high (NF-H) molecular weight subunits of NF were employed to
stain retinal whole-mounts of adult hamsters after pre-labelling the
ganglion cells with
Granular Blue. It was found that NF-L and NF-H
antibodies labelled 38,777 and 17,750 cells in the
ganglion cell layer respectively. By co-localization with GB-labelled cells, 88% of NF-L positive cells and 91% of NF-H positive cells were found to be
ganglion cells. In contrast, the NF-M antibody labelled only very few
ganglion cells (418 per retina) although robust staining of axonal bundles was observed. Thus, NF
antibodies may prove useful in studying this population of
ganglion cells.