Eyes from cardiomyopathic hamsters (UM-X7.1 strain) were examined histologically for evidence of ocular defects. Changes observed included microphthalmia, scleral ectasia, scleral rupture, keratoconus, retinal detachment, retinal dysplasia, retinal fragmentation, retinal thinning, fibrosis of iris and ciliary body, ectopia lentis, and cataract formation. Lesions characteristic of cardiomyopathi...

Nepeta (Lamiaceae) is an important genus with beneficial medicinal properties. N. sintenisiiBornm. has been used in folk medicine of Iran to cure various diseases. We investigated theanti-melanogenesis effects of n-hexane, MeOH, CH2Cl2, n-BuOH, EtOAc, and H2O extractsisolated from the plant in B16 melanoma cells. Various assays including cytotoxicity, mushroomtyrosinase inhibition, inhibition o...

Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) is a master regulator of pigmented cell survival and differentiation with direct transcriptional links to cell cycle, apoptosis and pigmentation. In mouse, Mitf is expressed early and uniformly in optic vesicle (OV) cells as they evaginate from the developing neural tube, and null Mitf mutations result in microphthalmia and pigmentation defe...

Microphthalmia with linear skin defects (MLS) is an X-linked dominant, male-lethal syndrome characterized by microphthalmia, aplastic skin and agenesis of the corpus callosum, and is caused by the deletion of a 500 kb critical region in Xp22.3. Our laboratory isolated a novel rho GTPase-activating protein (rhoGAP) gene named ARHGAP6 from the MLS region. ARHGAP6 contains 14 exons encoding a 974 ...

PURPOSE We isolated an autosomal semi-dominant cataract from our inbred SHR/OlaIpcv rat colony. Heterozygotes express pulverulent cataract with smaller eyes; homozygotes express marked microphthalmia with hypoplastic lens. We call this mutation Dca (for dominant cataract). In this study, we focus on the identification of the responsible gene. METHODS We performed linkage mapping using 93 F2(S...

Compromised heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) function reveals cryptic phenotypes in flies and plants. These observations were interpreted to suggest that this molecular stress-response chaperone has a capacity to buffer underlying genetic variation. Conversely, the protective role of Hsp90 could account for the variable penetrance or severity of some heritable developmental malformations in verteb...

A case of Peters anomaly with bilateral post axial polydactyly, convex soles, ocular hypertelorism, a low nasal bridge, retrognathia, undescended testis, microphthalmia and club foot was examined in a neonatal Indian baby girl who had been delivered in the hospital and admitted to the newborn unit. She died aged five days. There were no cases of Peters anomaly recorded in India according to a l...

The mouse semi-dominant Nm2249 mutation displays variable cataracts in heterozygous mice and smaller lenses with severe cataracts in homozygous mice. This mutation is caused by a Gja8(R205G) point mutation in the second extracellular loop of the Cx50 (or α8 connexin) protein. Immunohistological data reveal that Cx50-R205G mutant proteins and endogenous wild-type Cx46 (or α3 connexin) proteins f...

The major active retinoid, all-trans retinoic acid, has long been recognized as critical for the development of several organs, including the eye. Mutations in STRA6, the gene encoding the cellular receptor for vitamin A, in patients with Matthew-Wood syndrome and anophthalmia/microphthalmia (A/M), have previously demonstrated the importance of retinol metabolism in human eye disease. We used h...

Genetic mutations are frequently associated with diverse phenotypic consequences, which limits the interpretation of the consequence of a variation in patients. Mutations in the retinitis pigmentosa 2 (RP2) gene are associated with X-linked RP, which is a phenotypically heterogenic form of retinal degeneration. The purpose of this study was to assess the functional consequence of disease-associ...