Abstract
Purpose :
To elucidate the signaling pathway from the retina to sclera (via the choroid), in the regulation of spontaneous axial myopia in an albino guinea pig (GP) model.
Methods :
Refraction and biometry measurements were assessed by retinoscopy and Sonomed A-Scan ultrasound respectively. Eighteen Elm Hill albino GPs were divided into two groups, based on post-natal day 14 refraction, as either albino myopia (AM, n=9) or albino hyperopia (AH, n=9). Four GPs from each group were analyzed by RNAseq and the rest were analyzed by proteomics assay. QIAGEN IPA software was used to identify the canonical pathways in the retina, choroid, and sclera from both RNAseq and proteomics data.
Results :
The refraction (-5.0±1.5D vs. +3.6±2.4D, p<0.001) and axial length (7.4±0.2mm vs. 7.2±0.1mm, p<0.001) significantly differed between AM and AH. Around 17,000 gene IDs for GPs were identified from Ensembl, but only 150 genes in the sclera showed significantly different expression between AM and AH with adjusted p<0.05. Based on proteomics analysis, >8,000 protein names for GPs were identified from UniProt, and the levels of 274 proteins in the retina, 106 proteins in the choroid, and 125 proteins in the sclera were statistically different between AM and AH with adjusted p<0.05. The canonical pathways identified at the gene level were far fewer than at the protein level among all three tissue types.
Conclusions :
The combination of differentially expressed mRNA and proteins data can increase the confidence for biological discovery in the spontaneously myopic eye, which can elucidate the genetic basis of individual susceptibility to myopia development and potential pharmaceutical therapeutic targets.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.