Anteroposterior Patterning of Gene Expression in the Human Infant Sclera: Chondrogenic Potential and Wnt Signaling

ABSTRACTPurpose/Aim: We sought to identify the anteroposterior spatial gene expression hierarchy in the human sclera to develop a hypothesis for axial elongation and deformity of the eyeball.Materials and Methods: We analyzed the global gene expression of human scleral cells derived from distinct parts of the human infant sclera obtained from surgically enucleated eyes with retinoblastoma, using Affymetrix GeneChip oligonucleotide arrays, and compared, in particular, gene expression levels between the anterior and posterior parts of the sclera. The ages of three donors were 10M, 4M, and 1Y9M.Results: K-means clustering analysis of gene expression revealed that expression levels of cartilage-associated genes such as COLXIA and ACAN increased from the anterior to the posterior part of the sclera. Microarray analyses and RT-PCR data showed that the expression levels of MGP, COLXIA, BMP4, and RARB were significantly higher in the posterior than in the anterior sclera of two independent infant eyes. Conversely...