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Primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) is a leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide, and elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) is a major risk factor. While IOP is mainly controlled by adjusting the outflow resistance in the trabecular meshwork (TM), drugs that act directly on the TM are rare. In this study, we discovered a novel compound and pathway that acts on the TM and decreases IOP by genomic, proteomic, and bioinformatic analyses of POAG-derived TMs and experimental validation. Overlapping differentially expressed genes of the TM between patients with POAG and normal controls from two independent gene expression profiles in public databases were analyzed and matched by using the Connectivity Map (CMap). Rottlerin was identified as a potential compound. Subsequent experiments confirmed that rottlerin reversed POAG phenotypes in vitro and that it decreased IOP and actin/extracellular matrix accumulation in vivo with no detectable ocular side effects. SwissTargetPrediction in combination with pathway analysis predicted that the effects of rottlerin may be mediated by activation of the Rap1 pathway. Finally, we confirmed that rottlerin upregulated Rap1 and the downstream PI3K/AKT pathway independent of the MAPK/ERK pathway in a dexamethasone-induced POAG cell model.
Department of Ophthalmology, Institute of Surgery Research and Daping Hospital, Army Medical Center of PLA, Army Medical University, Chongqing 400042, China.
Full article3.8 Pharmacology (Part of: 3 Laboratory methods)
2.5.1 Trabecular meshwork (Part of: 2 Anatomical structures in glaucoma > 2.5 Meshwork)
3.6 Cellular biology (Part of: 3 Laboratory methods)
3.5 Molecular biology incl. SiRNA (Part of: 3 Laboratory methods)