Optical coherence tomography-guided transepithelial phototherapeutic keratectomy for the treatment of anterior corneal scarring.

Purpose: To report the visual and anatomic outcomes of a novel technique for the management of anterior corneal scarring using optical coherence tomography (OCT)-guided transepithelial phototherapeutic keratectomy (transepithelial PTK).

Design: Retrospective, consecutive case series.

Methods: The charts of 22 patients with anterior corneal scarring associated with irregularities in the Bowman layer who had undergone transepithelial PTK according to a novel protocol were reviewed.

Functional microRNA involved in endometriosis.

Endometriosis is a common disease seen by gynecologists. Clinical features involve pelvic pain and unexplained infertility. Although endometriosis is pathologically characterized by endometrial tissue outside the normal uterine location, endometriosis is otherwise not easily explained.

GASZ is essential for male meiosis and suppression of retrotransposon expression in the male germline.

Nuage are amorphous ultrastructural granules in the cytoplasm of male germ cells as divergent as Drosophila, Xenopus, and Homo sapiens. Most nuage are cytoplasmic ribonucleoprotein structures implicated in diverse RNA metabolism including the regulation of PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA) synthesis by the PIWI family (i.e.

Deletion of Dicer in somatic cells of the female reproductive tract causes sterility.

Dicer is an evolutionarily conserved ribonuclease III that is necessary for microRNA (miRNA) processing and the synthesis of small interfering RNAs from long double-stranded RNA. Although it has been shown that Dicer plays important roles in the mammalian germline and early embryogenesis, the functions of Dicer-dependent pathways in the somatic cells of the female reproductive tract are unknown. Using a transgenic line in which Cre recombinase is driven by the anti-Müllerian hormone receptor type 2 promoter, we conditionally inactivated Dicer1 in the mesenchyme of the developing Müllerian ducts and postnatally in ovarian granulosa cells and mesenchyme-derived cells of the oviducts and uterus.