Abstract
Purpose :
To examine the influence of an intraocularly applied antibody to amphiregulin, a bifunctional growth modulator interacting with the epithelial growth factor/tissue growth factor-α receptor, on ocular axial elongation.
Methods :
Guinea pigs (age:2-3 weeks) undergoing unilateral or bilateral lens-induced myopization (group 1), and guinea pigs which were primarily myopic at baseline without additional lens-induced myopization (group 2), received unilateral intraocular injections of amphiregulin antibody (doses:5,10,or 15μg) three times in intervals of 9 days, while the contralateral eyes received intraocular injections of Ringers solution. A third group of guinea pigs with normal refractive error at baseline and without lens-induced myopization received intraocular unilateral injections of amphiregulin (doses:0.25,0.50 or 1.00ng, respectively), and injections of Ringers solution into the contralateral eyes.
Results :
In intra-animal inter-eye comparison and intra-eye follow-up comparison in groups 1 and 2, the study eyes as compared to the contralateral eyes showed a dose-dependent reduction in axial elongation. In group 3, study eyes and control eyes did not differ significantly in axial elongation. Immunohistochemistry revealed amphiregulin labelling at the retinal pigment epithelium in eyes with lens-induced myopization and Ringers solution injection, but not in eyes with amphiregulin antibody injection.
Conclusions :
Repeated intraocular injection of amphiregulin-antibody was associated with a reduction of lens-induced axial myopic elongation and with reduction of the physiological eye enlargement in young guinea pigs. In contrast, intraocularly injected amphiregulin in a dose of ≤1ng did not show a significant effect. Amphiregulin may be one of several essential molecular factors for axial elongation in young guinea pigs.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.