Three-dimensional topographic changes of anterior chamber depth following phacoemulsification with intraocular lens implantation in cataract patients.

PURPOSE: To investigate the three-dimensional topographic changes of anterior chamber depth (ACD) following cataract surgery. METHODS: Seventy-eight eyes with age-related cataract undergoing phacoemulsification and intraocular lens (IOL) implantation were retrospectively enrolled. Participants were evaluated with Pentacam for ACD topography before and approximately four weeks after the surgery. The absolute changes of ACD (AACD) and the relative changes of ACD (RACD) topography were calculated, and three-dimensional topographic contours were plotted. The influence of age, gender, distance to corneal apex (DCA), temporal-nasal and superior-inferior on AACD and RACD was analyzed. RESULTS: Both AACD and RACD were negatively correlated with the DCA (p < 0.001; p < 0.001) and positively correlated with the age at all DCA (p < 0.05 for all the analyses). Significantly greater AACD and RACD were observed in female subjects (p < 0.05, respectively, at all DCA). AACD was significantly larger in the temporal compared with the nasal region (p < 0.001) and at the superior compared with the inferior region (p < 0.001), but not RACD. Subgroup analysis indicated that the significant difference of the AACD between the temporal and nasal regions was manifested at the DCA of more than 6 mm (p < 0.001), and the difference between the superior and inferior regions was observed at 2 mm DCA for both AACD (p < 0.001) and RACD (p = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: We depicted the topographic changes of ACD following cataract surgery and found that it was significantly influenced by age, gender, DCA and quadrant location. The research provided the basis for including postoperative ACD topography prediction before cataract surgery in the future.

Mitochondrial proteome of mouse oocytes and cisplatin-induced shifts in protein profile.

Mitochondria are essential organelles that provide energy for mammalian cells and participate in multiple functions, such as signal transduction, cellular differentiation, and regulation of apoptosis. Compared with the mitochondria in somatic cells, oocyte mitochondria have an additional level of importance since they are required for germ cell maturation, dysfunction in which can lead to severe inherited disorders. Thus, a systematic proteomic profile of oocyte mitochondria is urgently needed to support the basic and clinical research, but the acquisition of such a profile has been hindered by the rarity of oocyte samples and technical challenges associated with capturing mitochondrial proteins from live oocytes. Here, in this work, using proximity labeling proteomics, we established a mitochondria-specific ascorbate peroxidase (APEX2) reaction in live GV-stage mouse oocytes and identified a total of 158 proteins in oocyte mitochondria. This proteome includes intrinsic mitochondrial structural and functional components involved in processes associated with "cellular respiration", "ATP metabolism", "mitochondrial transport", etc. In addition, mitochondrial proteome capture after oocyte exposure to the antitumor chemotherapeutic cisplatin revealed differential changes in the abundance of several oocyte-specific mitochondrial proteins. Our study provides the first description of a mammalian oocyte mitochondrial proteome of which we are aware, and further illustrates the dynamic shifts in protein abundance associated with chemotherapeutic agents.

Developing a Deep Learning Model to Evaluate Bulbar Conjunctival Injection with Color Anterior Segment Photographs.

The present research aims to evaluate the feasibility of a deep-learning model in identifying bulbar conjunctival injection grading. Methods: We collected 1401 color anterior segment photographs demonstrating the cornea and bulbar conjunctival. The ground truth was bulbar conjunctival injection scores labeled by human ophthalmologists. Two convolutional neural network-based models were constructed and trained. Accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, Kappa, and the area under the curve (AUC) were calculated to evaluate the efficiency of the deep learning models. The micro-average and macro-average AUC values for model grading bulbar conjunctival injection were 0.98 and 0.98, respectively. The deep learning model achieved a high accuracy of 87.12%, a precision of 87.13%, a recall of 87.12%, an F1-score of 87.07%, and Cohen's Kappa of 0.8153. The deep learning model demonstrated excellent performance in evaluating the severity of bulbar conjunctival injection, and it has the potential to help evaluate ocular surface diseases and determine disease progression and recovery.

The impact of COVID-19 home confinement on axial length in myopic children undergoing orthokeratology.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Understanding the impact of home confinement on axial length in myopic children undergoing orthokeratology (OK) treatment facilitates the management of myopia control during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown. BACKGROUND: The outbreak of COVID-19 and the corresponding home confinement measures have brought a considerable challenge to myopia control. The study aimed to investigate the influence of home quarantine on axial length in myopic children with OK treatment. METHODS: Axial length measurements during and before COVID-19 home confinement were retrospectively collected from the myopic children treated with OK, and the children were prospectively followed up after finishing the quarantine. The monthly axial length growth before, during and after confinement was calculated and compared in the full dataset and subgroups stratified by age. Influencing factors for monthly axial length growth during confinement were analysed. RESULTS: Ninety-two myopic children with OK treatment were enrolled in this study. In the full dataset, covariates adjusted (gender, time interval, baseline axial length and age) monthly axial length growth during confinement was not significantly different from that before (P = 0.213) or after the home confinement (P = 1.000). Multiple linear regression showed that the monthly axial length growth during confinement was negatively correlated with age (P = 0.002). Subgroup analysis based on age demonstrated that the adjusted monthly axial length growth was not significantly different among three periods (P > 0.05) for younger children. For children older than 12-year-old, the adjusted monthly axial length growth during home confinement was significantly slower than before the confinement (P = 0.011), but not the monthly axial length growth after the confinement (P = 1.000). CONCLUSIONS: COVID-19 home confinement does not increase the myopic axial length elongation in children with OK treatment.

Downregulation of cAMP-Dependent Protein Kinase Inhibitor-b Promotes Preeclampsia by Decreasing Phosphorylated Akt.

Preeclampsia is a multi-system disease that is unique to human pregnancy. Impaired extravillous trophoblast migration and invasion accompanied by poor spiral vascular remodeling is thought to be the initial reason. This study investigated cAMP-dependent protein kinase inhibitor-b(PKIB) expression in placentas and its involvement in the pathogenesis of PE. We used immunohistochemistry and western blotting to calculate PKIB levels in the placentas. Then we knocked down PKIB by siRNA and used real-time cell analysis to assess the invasion and migration ability of trophoblasts. Tube formation assay and spheroid sprouting assay were utilized to identify the ability to form vessels of trophoblasts. At last, western blotting was used to demonstrate the level of phosphorylated Akt, as well as downstream-related genes of Akt signaling pathway in trophoblasts. We first found that PKIB expression level was lower in the PE placentas than in the normal placentas. In addition, we found that downregulation of PKIB can inhibit the migration, invasion, and the ability to form vessels of HTR8/SVneo cells. Downregulation of PKIB leaded to a decrease in phosphorylated Akt, as well as downstream proteins such as matrix metalloproteinase 2, matrix metalloproteinase 9, and glycogen synthase kinase 3ß, which are related to migration and invasion. Our study revealed that the downregulation of PKIB expression resulted in decreased migration, invasion, and vessel formation ability by regulating Akt signaling pathway in placental trophoblasts in PE.

Tissue specificity of DNA damage response and tumorigenesis.

The genome of cells is constantly challenged by DNA damages from endogenous metabolism and environmental agents. These damages could potentially lead to genomic instability and thus to tumorigenesis. To cope with the threats, cells have evolved an intricate network, namely DNA damage response (DDR) system that senses and deals with the lesions of DNA. Although the DDR operates by relatively uniform principles, different tissues give rise to distinct types of DNA damages combined with high diversity of microenvironments across tissues. In this review, we discuss recent findings on specific DNA damage among different tissues as well as the main DNA repair way in corresponding microenvironments, highlighting tissue specificity of DDR and tumorigenesis. We hope the current review will provide further insights into molecular process of tumorigenesis and generate new strategies for cancer treatment.