Department of Psychology and Counselling, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, 3086, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2017 Aug 29;7(1):9719. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-10277-2.
Myopia (short-sightedness) and hyperopia (long-sightedness) occur when the eye grows too long or short, respectively, for its refractive power. There are currently approximately 1.45 billion myopes worldwide and prevalence is rising dramatically. Although high myopia significantly increases the risk of developing a range of sight-threatening disorders, the molecular mechanisms underlying ocular growth regulation and its relationship to these secondary complications remain poorly understood. Thus, this study meta-analyzed transcriptome datasets collected in the commonly used chick model of optically-induced refractive error. Fifteen datasets (collected across five previous studies) were obtained from GEO, preprocessed in Bioconductor, and divided into 4 conditions representing early (≤1 day) and late (>1 day) myopia and hyperopia induction. Differentially expressed genes in each condition were then identified using Rank Product meta-analysis. The results provide novel evidence for transcriptional activation of the complement system during both myopia and hyperopia induction, and confirm existing literature implicating cell signaling, mitochondrial, and structural processes in refractive error. Further comparisons demonstrated that the meta-analysis results also significantly improve concordance with broader omics data types (i.e., human genetic association and animal proteomics studies) relative to previous transcriptome studies, and show extensive similarities with the genes linked to age-related macular degeneration, choroidal neovascularization, and cataract.
近视（短视）和远视（远视）分别发生在眼睛过长或过短，无法适应其折射力时。目前全球约有 14.5 亿近视患者，而且近视患病率正在急剧上升。虽然高度近视会显著增加一系列视力威胁性疾病的风险，但眼部生长调节的分子机制及其与这些继发性并发症的关系仍知之甚少。因此，本研究对常用的光诱导屈光不正鸡模型中的转录组数据集进行了荟萃分析。从 GEO 获得了 15 个数据集（来自五个先前的研究），在 Bioconductor 中进行预处理，并分为 4 个条件，代表早期（≤1 天）和晚期（>1 天）近视和远视诱导。然后使用秩和检验元分析鉴定每个条件中的差异表达基因。研究结果为补体系统在近视和远视诱导过程中的转录激活提供了新的证据，并证实了现有的文献提示细胞信号转导、线粒体和结构过程与屈光不正有关。进一步的比较表明，与之前的转录组研究相比，荟萃分析结果与更广泛的组学数据类型（即人类遗传关联和动物蛋白质组学研究）的一致性也显著提高，并且与与年龄相关性黄斑变性、脉络膜新生血管和白内障相关的基因有广泛的相似性。
