To exclusively investigate the extent of retinal microvascular amyloidosis and possible pericyte degeneration in AD without interference from other retinal tissues, we enzymatically digested retinas, preserved solely the vascular network [51, 77], and subsequently conducted fluorescent immunostaining for blood vessels (lectin), PDGFRβ, and different types of Aβ (Fig. 1; extended data in Supplementary Fig. 2, online resource). This evidence concerns the gene PDGFRB and Alzheimer disease.