The aim of this study was to find related pathogenic genes in cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy in (CADASIL)-like patients. The direct sequencing and high-throughput multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed to screen for related genes. The clinical and imaging data of a CADASIL-like patient (the pro-band) and his family mem...

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a genetically complex disorder of the photoreceptor-RPE-Bruch's membrane-choriocapillaris complex. Family and twin studies have shown that the susceptibility for this disease is genetically influenced. The heritability has been estimated to be up to 71%. Linkage and association studies have identified several chromosomal regions that are likely to conta...

PURPOSE Studies that analyzed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in various genes have shown that genetic factors are strongly associated with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) susceptibility. Copy number variation (CNV) may be an additional type of genetic variation that contributes to AMD pathogenesis. This study investigated CNV in 4 AMD-relevant genes in Korean AMD patients and cont...

High-temperature requirement A (HtrA) and its homologs contain a serine protease domain followed by one or two PDZ domains. Bacterial HtrA proteins and the mitochondrial protein HtrA2/Omi maintain cell function by acting as both molecular chaperones and proteases to manage misfolded proteins. The biological roles of the mammalian family members HtrA1 and HtrA3 are less clear. We report a detail...

Age related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of vision loss in the elderly in developed countries. Genetic factors play a major role in this multifactorial and polygenic disease. Genomewide analysis identified two loci on 1q25-31 and 10q26 chromosomes associated with AMD, and association studies highlighted the implication of SNPs located in the complement H factor gene (CFH) on ...

OBJECTIVE Low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 (LRP1) is a large endocytic and signaling receptor that is abundant in vascular smooth muscle cells. Mice in which the lrp1 gene is deleted in smooth muscle cells (smLRP1(-/-)) on a low-density lipoprotein receptor-deficient background display excessive platelet derived growth factor-signaling, smooth muscle cell proliferation, aneury...

PURPOSE To investigate the association between the serum high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) levels and variants in age-related maculopathy susceptibility 2 (ARMS2)/HtrA serine peptidase 1 (HTRA1) genes in normal subjects with no evidence of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). METHODS After clinical evaluation, information related to medical and social history was collected from ...

We read the article ‘‘Overexpression of Htra1 and Exposure to Mainstream Cigarette Smoke Leads to Choroidal Neovascularization and Subretinal Deposits in Aged Mice’’ by Nakayama et al. with great interest. This elegant study explored the function of mouse HtrA1 and human ARMS2 gene using transgenic mice. Here we would like to present our study of postnatal overexpression of ARMS2 gene in transg...

Genetic variants at chromosomes 1q31-32 and 10q26 are strongly associated with susceptibility to age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a common blinding disease of the elderly. We demonstrate, by evaluating 45 tag SNPs spanning HTRA1, PLEKHA1, and predicted gene LOC387715/ARMS2, that rs10490924 SNP alone, or a variant in strong linkage disequilibrium, can explain the bulk of association betwe...