人类视网膜变性中的细胞凋亡

PURPOSE

This paper examined the role of apoptosis in human retinal degenerations including pathologic myopia, age-related macular degeneration, serous retinal detachment, retinal lattice, and paving stone degenerations.

METHOD

Thirty-seven enucleated human eyes with 1 of the above-mentioned retinal degenerations were studied by histopathology and by TdT-mediated biotin-dUTP nicked-end labelling (TUNEL) technique.

RESULTS

Tunnel labelling characteristic DNA fragmentation of apoptosis was observed in photoreceptor cells in 2 of the 4 eyes with pathologic myopia and in 4 of 16 eyes with age-related macular degeneration, 2 of which were exudative and 2 of which were atrophic. However, only a few scattered photoreceptor cells were labelled in 4 of 8 eyes with serous retinal detachment secondary to malignant melanoma of the choroid. Moreover, none of the photoreceptors cells in the 4 eyes with retinal lattice degeneration and 6 eyes with retinal paving stone degeneration were labelled.

CONCLUSIONS

Apoptosis is 1 of the important pathways of photoreceptor cell degeneration in pathologic myopia and age-related macular degeneration.

目的

本文研究了细胞凋亡在人类视网膜变性中的作用，这些视网膜变性包括病理性近视、年龄相关性黄斑变性、浆液性视网膜脱离、视网膜格子样变性和铺路石样变性。

方法

采用组织病理学和TdT介导的生物素-dUTP缺口末端标记（TUNEL）技术，对37只患有上述视网膜变性之一的摘除人眼进行了研究。

结果

在4只病理性近视眼中的2只、16只年龄相关性黄斑变性眼中的4只（其中2只为渗出性，2只为萎缩性）的光感受器细胞中观察到了凋亡特征性的DNA片段化的TUNEL标记。然而，在8只继发于脉络膜恶性黑色素瘤的浆液性视网膜脱离眼中的4只中，仅发现少数散在的光感受器细胞被标记。此外，在4只视网膜格子样变性眼和6只视网膜铺路石样变性眼中，均未发现光感受器细胞被标记。