PURPOSE The aims of this study were to determine whether disruption of the blood-retina barrier (BRB) increases spread of murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) to the eye after intraperitoneal inoculation and whether systemic immunosuppression influences the location of MCMV in the ocular compartment. METHODS The BRB of the left eye of normal and immunosuppressed mice was disrupted by supraciliary in...

PURPOSE Inflammation associated with blood-retinal barrier (BRB) breakdown is a common feature of several retinal diseases. Therefore, the development of novel nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory approaches may provide important therapeutic options. Previous studies demonstrated that inhibition of dipeptidyl peptidase-IV, the enzyme responsible for the degradation of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1),...

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a serious microvascular complication of diabetes and a major cause of blindness in the developing world. Early DR is characterized by vascular neuroinflammation, cell apoptosis and breakdown of the blood‑retinal barrier (BRB). However, optimal treatment options and associated mechanisms remain unclear. Niaspan, which is widely used in the prevention and treatment of...

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) develops in a significant proportion of patients with chronic diabetes, characterized by retinal macular edema and abnormal retinal vessel outgrowth leading to vision loss. Chrysin, a naturally-occurring flavonoid found in herb and honeycomb, has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-cancer properties. This study sought to determine the protective effects of chrysin...

PURPOSE The GLUT1 glucose transporter mediates glucose entry into the endothelial cells of the inner blood-retinal barrier (BRB). In many cell types, exposure to high glucose concentrations or diabetes downregulates GLUT1. To determine whether long-standing diabetes alters the expression and distribution of inner BRB GLUT1, changes in immunoreactive retinal endothelial cell GLUT1 were studied i...

Dystrophin-Dp71 being a key membrane cytoskeletal protein, expressed mainly in Müller cells that provide a mechanical link at the Müller cell membrane by direct binding to actin and a transmembrane protein complex. Its absence has been related to blood-retinal barrier (BRB) permeability through delocalization and down-regulation of the AQP4 and Kir4.1 channels (1). We have previously shown that...

PURPOSE Recently, intravitreal injection of corticosteroids has been in wide use as a treatment for diabetic macular edema, and the outcomes have been favorable. However, the exact mechanism remains unclear. The hypothesis for the current study was that intravitreal corticosteroids may improve diabetic retinal edema by amelioration of blood-retinal barrier (BRB) breakdown, by inhibiting leukocy...

This paper describes a prototype clinical decision support system (CDSS) for risk stratification of patients with cardiac chest pain. A newly developed belief rule-based inference methodology-RIMER was employed for developing the prototype. Based on the belief rule-based inference methodology, the prototype CDSS can deal with uncertainties in both clinical domain knowledge and clinical data. Mo...