RFC1 and ischemia: We studied whether retinal ischemia caused any alterations in the inner BRB proteins and observed that 1 h retinal ischemia decreased collagen-4 and occludin immunosignal compared to controls (p = 0.0140, p = 0.0317 respectively; Fig. 4D, E). In addition, pretreatment with LV-RFC1, 10 days before ischemia led to increase in collagen-4 and occludin immunosignal compared to Control-LV delivered ones indicating that overexpression of RFC1 before ischemia might reverse the loss of ischemia-induced collagen-4 and occludin (p<0.0001, p = 0.039 respectively; Fig. 4 F, G).