Investigation of Association between Autophagy-Related Gene Polymorphisms and Pseudoexfoliation Syndrome and Pseudoexfoliation Glaucoma in a Spanish Population.

Purpose: Cellular stress conditions are important mechanisms implicated in the pathogenesis of pseudoexfoliation syndrome. One of the potential cellular responses to these stress conditions is induction of autophagy. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether genetic variants in three critical genes of autophagy (ATG16L, ATG2B, ATG5) may be involved in the development of pseudoexfoliation syndrome (XFS) and pseudoexfoliation glaucoma (XFG) in a Spanish population.