Abstract
Purpose :
Glaucoma affects millions of people worldwide and with limited treatments it is essential to discover new targets. The site of pathogenesis of Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma (POAG) is at the Trabecular Meshwork (TM). Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are a family of damage and pathogens-associated recognition receptors that are implicated in various ocular diseases. There is a lack of evidence for the expression of TLRs and their signaling molecules in the TM. In this study, we aim to evaluate the expression of TLRs and their signaling molecules on the glaucomatous mouse and human TM cells.
Methods :
Wild-type mouse TM cells (C3H/OuJ) and glaucomatous human TM cells were grown to confluency and treated in the presence or absence of transforming growth factor beta-2 (TGFβ-2). RNA was isolated and TLR signaling PCR Array was performed.
Results :
Our results indicate that all TLRs are expressed in both the TGFβ-2 treated C2H/OuJ TM cells and glaucomatous human TM cells. Also, we found that TLR downstream signaling components were expressed by the TM in the presence or absence of TGFβ-2.
Conclusions :
In this study, we show that all TLRs and signaling molecules are expressed in the TM in both TGFβ-2 treated cells and glaucomatous human cells, something that has not been shown before. This data opens new areas of investigation into the TLR pathways and its role in POAG.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.