Loretta Mcnatt

Increased expression of the WNT antagonist sFRP-1 in glaucoma elevates intraocular pressure

Elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) is the principal risk factor for glaucoma and results from excessive impedance of the fluid outflow from the eye. This abnormality likely originates from outflow pathway tissues such as the trabecular meshwork (TM), but the associated molecular etiology is poorly understood. We discovered what we believe to be a novel role for secreted frizzled-related protein-1 (sFRP-1), an antagonist of Wnt signaling, in regulating IOP. sFRP1 was overexpressed in human glaucomatous TM cells. Genes involved in the Wnt signaling pathway were expressed in cultured TM cells and human TM tissues. Addition of recombinant sFRP-1 to ex vivo perfusion-cultured human eyes decreased outflow facility, concomitant with reduced levels of beta-catenin, the Wnt signaling mediator, in the TM. Intravitreal injection of an adenoviral vector encoding sFRP1 in mice produced a titer-dependent increase in IOP. Five days after vector injection, IOP increased 2 fold, which was significantly reduced by topical ocular administration of an inhibitor of a downstream suppressor of Wnt signaling. Thus, these data indicate that increased expression of sFRP1 in the TM appears to be responsible for elevated IOP in glaucoma and restoring Wnt signaling in the TM may be a novel disease intervention strategy for treating glaucoma.

Increased Expression of Serum Amyloid A in Glaucoma and Its Effect on Intraocular Pressure

PURPOSE To search for and validate potential molecular pathogenic mechanisms in the trabecular meshwork (TM) responsible for the elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) associated with glaucoma. METHODS Gene chip arrays were used to identify differential gene expression in glaucomatous TM tissues. Serum amyloid A (SAA) upregulation was subsequently confirmed with quantitative PCR (QPCR) and ELISA. The effect of SAA on gene expression of cultured human TM cells was tested with gene chip arrays and verified with ELISA, and its effect on IOP was evaluated in the human ocular perfusion organ culture. RESULTS Microarray analysis showed that the expression of SAA2 was increased in TM tissues from donors with glaucoma. This finding was subsequently confirmed by QPCR. The SAA mRNA levels were increased in glaucoma TM tissues by more than 5-fold (P < 0.05) and in cultured TM cells derived from donors with glaucoma by 25-fold (P < 0.05) compared with controls. SAA protein levels in the TM of glaucoma patients were also significantly (P < 0.05) elevated by 2.9-fold. Treatment of cultured human TM cells with recombinant SAA affected gene expression, including a 22-fold up-regulation of interleukin-8 (P < 0.001). SAA increased IOP by approximately 40% (P < 0.05) in the human ocular perfusion organ culture without any observable changes in the morphology of the tissues involved in aqueous outflow. CONCLUSIONS These findings indicate that SAA, which is an acute-phase apolipoprotein that plays important roles in infection, inflammation, and tissue repair, may contribute to the pathogenic changes to the TM in glaucoma.

Angiostatic activity and metabolism of cortisol in the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) of the chick embryo

There is considerable interest in the discovery of compounds which inhibit angiogenesis dependent (neovascular) diseases. The chick embryo, due to the rapid development of an extensive vascular capillary network in the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM), has been used extensively as a model for studying angiogenesis. Angiostatic steroids are a new class of compounds which inhibit the growth of new capillaries in the chick CAM and in other models of neovascularization. Despite the potential therapeutic importance of these compounds, little is known about the ability of the CAM to metabolize these steroids. We have evaluated the ability of the chick CAM to metabolize cortisol which is both an angiostatic steroid as well as a glucocorticoid. When CAM homogenate was incubated with [3H]cortisol and NADPH at 37 degrees C and pH 7.4, and the reaction products analyzed by reverse phase HPLC, [3H]cortisol was converted exclusively to 20 beta-dihydrocortisol (4-pregnen-11 beta,17 alpha,20 beta,21-tetrol-3-one). The cortisol metabolite, 20 beta-dihydrocortisol, has very little glucocorticoid activity, but shows significant angiostatic activity in the CAM comparable to cortisol. The apparent Km determined for cortisol metabolism was 12 microM and the observed Vmax was 1.4 mumol cortisol/mg protein/min. The majority of the 20 beta-reductase activity was found in the soluble (242,000 g) fraction of CAM homogenate. 20 beta-Reductase activity in chick embryo CAM has not been previously reported.

Characterization of the reduction of 3-acetylpyridine adenine dinucleotide phosphate by benzyl alcohol catalyzed by aldose reductase.

Aldose reductase from rat lens catalyzes reduction of the 3-acetylpyridine analog of NADP+ by benzyl alcohol; the fluorescence of the reduced pyridine nucleotide produced in this reaction forms the basis of a new, more sensitive assay for this enzyme. The pH dependence and kcat/Km ratio of this enzymatic reaction are very similar with NADP+ or the analog; however, at pH 7.5, the reaction with the analog has a sevenfold greater kcat. In an NADPH-supported reduction reaction, aldose reductase exhibited similar activity toward benzaldehyde and glyceraldehyde, but benzyl alcohol was a much better substrate than physiological polyols in the analog-dependent oxidation reaction: relative kcat/Km ratios were 740 for benzyl alcohol, 2.2 for xylitol, and 1.0 for glycerol. By this assay, a new, high-affinity aldose reductase inhibitor AL-1567 showed noncompetitive inhibition with the pyridine nucleotide analog, with Ki = 2.05 X 10(-6) M, and competitive inhibition with benzyl alcohol, with Ki = 5.7 X 10(-9) M, indicating that the inhibitor binds the free enzyme with extremely high affinity. Compared to spectrophotometric assays of aldose reductase activity, the fluorometric assay extends the lower limit of detectability of enzyme activity by a factor of 100, and allows the determination of Ki values for potent inhibitors of the enzyme with greater accuracy.