Human lipocalin-1 association with 3H-testosterone and 3H-estradiol.

Purpose: Topical androgens and estrogens have been studied for use in treating ocular conditions such as dry eye. The aim of this study was to identify proteins from normal human tears that associated with exogenously added sex steroid hormones. One of the major proteins in ocular tears is lipocalin-1.

Antibodies to endogenous tear protein in normal human tears.

Purpose: To identify endogenous tear proteins immunoselected by antibodies from normal human ocular tears.

Materials And Methods: Proteins were immunoselected from normal human tear samples without the addition of primary antibodies. Captured proteins were electrophoresed in polyacrylamide gels and silver stained.

Secretoglobins: lacrimal gland-specific rabbit lipophilin mRNAs.

Purpose: RNAs encoding secretoglobin subunits, also known as lipophilins, are found in rabbit lacrimal glands. Some secretoglobins in other species are tissue- and/or sex-specific, whereas other secretoglobins are expressed in a variety of tissues of both sexes. In this study the tissue-specific and sexual dimorphic expression patterns of rabbit lacrimal gland lipophilins AL, AL2, BL, CL, and CL2 were determined.

Lens stem cells may reside outside the lens capsule: an hypothesis.

In this paper, we consider the ocular lens in the context of contemporary developments in biological ideas. We attempt to reconcile lens biology with stem cell concepts and a dearth of lens tumors.Historically, the lens has been viewed as a closed system, in which cells at the periphery of the lens epithelium differentiate into fiber cells.

Secretoglobins: sexually dimorphic expression of androgen-binding protein mRNA in mouse lacrimal glands.

Purpose: This study was conducted to seek sex differences in mRNA expression in normal mouse lacrimal glands. Gene expression differences in the lacrimal gland may contribute to susceptibility to lacrimal gland or ocular surface disease.

Methods: A differential display analysis was performed on poly(A)+ RNA isolated from male and female Swiss Webster mouse exorbital lacrimal glands.

mRNA encoding a new lipolytic enzyme expressed in rabbit lacrimal glands.

Purpose: In previous work, lacrimal glands of female mice were shown to express an mRNA encoding pancreatic lipase-related protein 1 (PLRP1), a member of the triacylglycerol lipase family. To investigate the hypothesis that lacrimal glands express mRNAs encoding other lipolytic enzymes, the present study was conducted to look for triacylglycerol lipase-related mRNAs in the lacrimal glands of rabbits.

Methods: Degenerate polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers were designed based on two conserved amino acid motifs, RITGLD, and DI/(F)Y/(F)PNGG, in the triacylglycerol lipase family.