Department of Ophthalmology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
BMC Med Genomics. 2021 Jun 9;14(1):153. doi: 10.1186/s12920-021-01005-x.
Refractive eye development is regulated by optical defocus in a process of emmetropization. Excessive exposure to negative optical defocus often leads to the development of myopia. However, it is still largely unknown how optical defocus is detected by the retina.
Here, we used genome-wide RNA-sequencing to conduct analysis of the retinal gene expression network underlying contrast perception and refractive eye development.
We report that the genetic network subserving contrast perception plays an important role in optical defocus detection and emmetropization. Our results demonstrate an interaction between contrast perception, the retinal circadian clock pathway and the signaling pathway underlying optical defocus detection. We also observe that the relative majority of genes causing human myopia are involved in the processing of optical defocus.
Together, our results support the hypothesis that optical defocus is perceived by the retina using contrast as a proxy and provide new insights into molecular signaling underlying refractive eye development.
屈光眼的发育受正视化过程中光学离焦的调节。过度暴露于负光学离焦往往会导致近视的发展。然而，视网膜如何检测光学离焦在很大程度上仍是未知的。
在这里，我们使用全基因组 RNA 测序来分析对比度感知和屈光眼发育的视网膜基因表达网络。
我们报告说，支持对比度感知的遗传网络在离焦检测和正视化中起着重要作用。我们的结果表明，对比度感知、视网膜昼夜节律途径和离焦检测信号通路之间存在相互作用。我们还观察到，导致人类近视的相对大多数基因都参与了光离焦的处理。
总之，我们的结果支持了这样一种假设，即视网膜通过对比来感知离焦，并为屈光眼发育的分子信号提供了新的见解。
