Geographic atrophy (GA) and choroidal neovascularization (CNV), the two late forms of age-related macular degeneration, are generally considered two distinct entities. However, GA and CNV can occur simultaneously in the same eye, with GA usually occurring first. The prevalence of this combined entity is higher in histological studies than in clinical studies. No distinct systemic or genetic ris...

Accurate detection of somatic copy number variations (CNVs) is an essential part of cancer genome analysis, and plays an important role in oncotarget identifications. Next generation sequencing (NGS) holds the promise to revolutionize somatic CNV detection. In this review, we provide an overview of current analytic tools used for CNV detection in NGS-based cancer studies. We summarize the NGS d...

BACKGROUND Inflammation is a well-known risk factor for the development of choroidal neovascularization (CNV), yet not all causes of intraocular inflammation have been documented to cause CNV. Tubulointerstitial nephritis and uveitis syndrome (TINU) is a rare cause of intraocular inflammation mostly in pediatric patients and only seldom has been associated with development of CNV. FINDINGS A ...

Besides single-nucleotide variants in the human genome, large-scale genomic variants, such as copy number variations (CNVs), are being increasingly discovered as a genetic source of human diversity and the pathogenic factors of diseases. Recent experimental findings have shed light on the links between different genome architectures and CNV mutagenesis. In this review, we summarize various geno...

SUMMARY The method for genome-wide association study (GWAS) based on copy number variation (CNV) is not as well established as that for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-GWAS. Although there are several tools for CNV association studies, most of them do not provide appropriate definitions of CNV regions (CNVRs), which are essential for CNV-association studies. Here we present a user-friendly...

Monozygotic (MZ) twins form an important system for the study of biological plasticity in humans. While MZ twins are generally considered to be genetically identical, a number of studies have emerged that have demonstrated copy-number differences within a twin pair, particularly in those discordant for disease. The rate of autosomal copy-number variation (CNV) discordance within MZ twin pairs w...

Soil environmental variability and fungal community structures were analyzed to evaluate differences in soils managed under organic (ORG) and conventional (CNV) systems of farming in Fukushima and Yamagata prefectures in Japan. The soils were collected from 8 ORG and 13 CNV farms in 2005, and 6 ORG and 13 CNV farms in 2006. Principal component analysis (PCA) of 26 environmental variables demons...

PURPOSE Choroidal neovascularization (CNV) is the leading cause of blindness in patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). This study evaluated the inhibitory effect of vasostatin (VS), an endogenous angiogenesis inhibitor, on CNV. METHODS Anti-angiogenic activity of VS was evaluated in vitro by migration and tube formation assays in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs)....

PURPOSE Wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which accounts for most AMD-related vision loss, is characterized by choroidal neovascularization (CNV). The underlying mechanism of CNV is poorly understood, but evidence indicates pathologic recruitment of normal angiogenic signaling pathways such as the VEGF pathway. Recent evidence suggests that the VEGF pathway regulates angiogenesis in c...

PURPOSE To identify the expression of junctional adhesion molecule-C (JAM-C) in choroidal neovascularization (CNV) and evaluate the effect of JAM-C targeting on CNV formation and on cellular functions relevant to CNV in vitro, such as macrophage transmigration, human retinal pigment epithelial (hRPE) cell migration, and monolayer RPE permeability. METHODS JAM-C expression in CNV was analyzed ...