Hyposmotic stress causes ATP release in a discrete zone within the outer cortex of rat lens.

Purpose: Purinergic signaling pathways activated by extracellular ATP have been implicated in the regulation of lens volume and transparency. In this study, we investigated the location of ATP release from whole rat lenses and the mechanism by which osmotic challenge alters such ATP release.

Methods: Three-week-old rat lenses were cultured for 1 h in isotonic artificial aqueous humor (AAH) with no extracellular Ca, hypotonic AAH, or hypertonic AAH.

Establishment and 12-month progress of the New Zealand Motor Neurone Disease Registry.

There are only limited treatments currently available for Motor Neurone Disease, each with modest benefits. However, there is a large amount of research and drug discovery currently underway worldwide. The New Zealand Motor Neurone Disease Registry was established in 2017 to facilitate participation in research and clinical trials, and to aid researchers in planning and recruitment.

Verification and spatial localization of aquaporin-5 in the ocular lens.

Until recently, the lens was thought to express only two aquaporin (AQP) water channels, AQP1 and AQP0. In this study we confirm lenticular AQP5 protein expression by Western blotting and mass spectrometry in lenses from a variety of species. In addition, confocal microscopy was used to map cellular distributions of AQP5 in mouse, rat and human lenses.

Confocal microscopy reveals zones of membrane remodeling in the outer cortex of the human lens.

Purpose: To optimize fixation, sectioning, and immunolabeling protocols to map the morphology of the human lens with confocal microscopy.

Methods: Transparent human lenses were fixed in 0.75% paraformaldehyde for 24 hours, cut in half, and fixed for another 24 hours.