Abstract
Purpose :
To compare the corneal epithelial gene expression profile of progressive keratoconus (KC) patients and healthy myopic patients.
Methods :
Genome-wide transcriptome analyses by RNA-sequencing from total RNA isolated from the epithelial tissue of individual cases of progressive KC undergoing epithelium-off corneal collagen cross-linking. The control group consisted of healthy myopic controls undergoing myopic photorefractive keratectomy (PRK). The latter group was screened to rule out KC prior to PRK. These results were then verified using TaqMan PCR performed on the initial cohort and additional samples.
Results :
Differential gene expression was found in samples originating from patients with progressive KC. Specifically, WNT10A was found to be underexpressed in KC (relative expression: 0.6, p=0.03) as was PRUNE2 (0.62, p=0.03), whereas NRAPR1 was overexpressed (1.84, p=0.02).
Conclusions :
The differential gene expression in the corneal epithelium of progressive KC suggests that the abnormalities observed in KC corneas are not limited to the stroma, and that pathological process may also involve the corneal epithelium.
This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 28 - May 2, 2019.