Up-Regulation of MUC2 With Adenovirus Type 8 Infection at the Ocular Surface

Abstract

Purpose: : To quantify MUC2 and MUC5AC in tear samples obtained from patients with ocular adenovirus infection.

Methods: : Tear samples of twenty eyes from 10 patients with acute adenoviral infection determined by PCR as well as 20 eyes of 10 age-and-sex-matched non infected subjects were obtained. Protein normalization in each sample was performed by Lowry method; 1 µg/ ml were submitted to determine MUC2 and MUC5AC analysis by ELISA technique.

Results: : All patients with clinical adenovirus infection were confirmed by PCR analysis for adenovirus type 8. An average of one hundred microliters was obtained from all tear samples. There were no differences in protein concentration between groups . Mean MUC5AC was 0.374 (± 0.2) nm in tear samples from infected adenovirus patients in comparison to non infected samples 0.347 (±0.07) (p>0.05). MUC2 was significantly higher in infected samples 0.246 (± 0.2) versus non infected eyes 0.065 (± 0.01) (p<0.001).

Conclusions: : Up-regulation of MUC2 was observed in patients with adenovirus infection. It is possible that the proinflammatory microenvironment enriched with TNF-a could increase MUC2 expression. The changes observed in tear mucins from patients with adenovirus infection could affect the tear film stability contributing with the viral infectivity.Acknowledgments: This work was supported by CONACYT-SALUD 14108

Keywords: cornea: surface mucins • cornea: epithelium • cornea: basic science