Abstract
Abstract: :
Purposes: To examine the effect of diphtheria toxin on the expression of mucins in conjunctiva goblet cells. Methods: Globel cell-specific promoter of human MUC5AC gene was used in this study. In this report, a minigene, Trc-Tox176, that contains the MUC5AC promoter, an attenuated diphtheria toxin A-chain gene, was used to generate coneless transgenic mice. Transgenic mice were identified by PCR and the copy number of the transgene was determined by Southern hybridization, and examined by histology. Results: The results of immunostaining with anti-mouse MUC1, MUC2, MUC4, and MUC5AC antibodies and reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) analysis with mRNA from the conjunctivas of transgenic mice showed that the mucin components were changed in conjunctival goblet cells in foure of eight transgenic mouse lines.The amount of mucin from goblet cells decreased, but the membranous mucins increased in these mice. Conclusions: The compensation of different mucin maybe play an important role in the homeostasis of ocular surface.
Keywords: conjunctiva • gene/expression • transgenics/knock-outs