Premium
CD44 and Posterior Capsular Opacification (PCO)
Author(s) -
Desai Vivek Dhaval,
Duncan Melinda,
Wang Yan
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.22.1_supplement.646.11
Subject(s) - cd44 , hepatocyte growth factor , lens (geology) , epithelial–mesenchymal transition , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , cancer research , pathology , immunology , medicine , downregulation and upregulation , cell , receptor , gene , biochemistry , paleontology
PCO arises from epithelial‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) of lens epithelial cells remaining behind following cataract surgery. In cancer systems, CD44 mediates changes that eventually result in EMT, although CD44 function in EMT has not been previously studied in the lens. In the normal adult mouse lens, we found CD44 protein and mRNA only in the lens fiber cells. CD44 null mice did not exhibit any qualitative differences in the timing or extent of expression of the EMT marker, α‐SMA, as compared to WT following cataract surgery suggesting that CD44 is not essential for EMT. But CD44 expression is highly up‐regulated in the remaining lens epithelial cells 12 hours following the surgery. This suggests that it is the earliest molecular marker ever described for lens response to injury and may serve as a good model to understand the early events in the lens epithelial response to injury and the sensitization of these cells to later TGFβ mediated EMT. CD44 expression is known to be up‐regulated in response to hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) mediated signaling and HGF has been reported to be a potent mitogen for lens epithelial cells. Future work will investigate the hypothesis that HGF mediated signaling up‐regulates in the lens in response to injury leading to up‐regulation of CD44 expression and sensitization of lens cells to EMT. Funded by the Beckman Foundation, Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, HHMI, and National Eye Institute.