Abstract
Purpose: :
Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a powerful mitogen for endothelial cells, recently reported to be produced by corneal limbal, midperipheral and central epithelium as well as by corneal endothelium. The present work is aimed at determining the temporal expression of the splice variants of vascular endothelial growth factor in rabbit corneas.
Methods: :
Reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction (RT–PCR) was performed to determine the splice variants in rabbit corneal tissue. Primer pair flanking splicing region of VEGF gene was used in order to detect all expressed splice variants simultaneously.
Results: :
Analysis by RT–PCR indicated that three species of mRNA were produced. Size calculations of PCR products revealed mRNA species corresponding to 120, 164, and 188 amino–acid forms of this cytokine. We found that the cornea, like some other tissues, had VEGF188 as a minor splice variant.
Conclusions: :
These results are suggestive of differing roles for VEGF splice variants in the neovascularization and repair of the cornea. The precise roles of the VEGF splice variants in injured tissues, however, remain to be clarified.
Keywords: gene/expression