Figure 1: TXNIP overexpression and retinal injury in early diabetic retinopathy. (i) TXNIP is significantly induced in the STZ-induced diabetic rat retina at 4 weeks. (ii) TXNIP overexpression is associated with fibronectin (FN) expression and capillary basement membrane (BM) thickening, and (iii) neuronal apoptosis both at the GCL and INL as revealed by caspase-3 (Casp-3) expression (adapted from Perrone et al., 2010) [45]. (iv) Retinal injury causes Muller glial activation (gliosis), which is represented by radial glial acidic protein (GFAP) expression expanding the entire neuro-retina [38]. These early molecular abnormalities in the diabetic retina are ameliorated by TXNIP knock down via intravitreal siRNA delivery [38,45].