| Research Abstract |
1. Clinical Study on Pathogenesis of Exfoliation Syndrome
The anterior chamber pigment dispersions after pupillary dilatation, anterior lens surface pigment particle, and angle pigmentation were significantly evident in Japanese patients with exfoliation syndrome than the normal control. No evident differences were detected in clinical signs between the exfoliation eyes with and without glaucoma.
2. Pathological study on Pathogenesis of Exfoliation Syndrome
Exfoliation materials were observed along the epithelial cells of the iris and ciliary body, and in the trabecular meshwork and zonules. The trabecular meshwork showed increase in the thickness of the trabecular beams and deposition of pigment granules in the trabecular cells. It was concluded that exfoliation glaucoma was a kind of pigmentary glaucoma causing degeneration of trabecular cells and consequent thickening of the trabecular sheets. In tissue specimens treated with cupromeronic blue, electron-dense filaments were seen associated with the exfoliation materials. In the studies with enzymatic digestion technique, it was demonstrated that exfoliation materials contain chondroitin sulfate, dermatan sulfate, heparan sulfate proteoglycans.
3. Molecular-Genetic Study on Pathogenesis of Exfoliation Syndrome
Thirty-four patients seen in Kyushu University Eye Clinic and 317 healthy controls were studied. HLA class I antigens were determined by serological typing using the NIH standard micro-cytotoxicity method with highly selected antisera. DNA typing of HLA class II alleles were performed using the technique with hybridization of polymerase chain reaction-amplified DNA with sequence-specific oligonucleotide probes. The frequency of DRB1^*0405 and DQA1^*03 showed lower tendency in the patients compared with controls, but no statistical significance. The findings suggest that there may be the genetic predisposition to exfoliation syndrome.
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