Abstract
Purpose: :
To investigate whether retinal complement gene expression is affected by short (1 week) and long term (8weeks) intraocular pressure elevation (IOP) in an induced IOP elevation mouse model of glaucoma.
Methods: :
High IOP was unilaterally induced in C57BL/6J mice for 8 days (short term, n=6) or 56 days (long term, n=6) via unilateral intracameral injection of 10um polystyrene beads while another group (n=6) served as naïve control group (no injection). IOP was monitored using a rebound tonometer. At the end of the experiment, RNA and protein was extracted from retinas and qPCR was performed for C1qb, C2, C3, C4 and CRRY. Protein expression of C1q and C3 was examined using immunoblotting and normalized against b-actin expression.
Results: :
qPCR experiments, showed low levels of expression of the complement genes studied. After one week of induction of elevated IOP, no significant differences (ANOVA, p>0.05) were observed between injected, contralateral and naïve control eyes. However after 8 weeks of induction of elevated IOP, C1qb and C3 were significantly upregulated in both eyes of experimental animals compared to naïve controls (ANOVA, p0.05) was observed in the protein levels of both C1q and C3 in any group.
Conclusions: :
The expression of complement components the retina in vivo is not influenced by short term rise in intraocular pressure. Longer exposure to high intraocular pressure affects the levels of certain complement components C1qb and C3 expression in the retina.
Keywords: protein purification and characterization • gene/expression