Apoptosis of rabbit retinal cell after eyeball rupture.

Objective: To establish rabbit eyeball rupture model by air gun in order to observe and analyze the early injury condition and reasons of retinal cell after eyeball rupture.

Methods: Forty eight healthy rabbits were randomly divided into control group and 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 h after injury groups. After anesthesia, the rabbit eyeball rupture model was established by air gun. Then the early pathological changes of rabbit retina were observed, and apoptotic index (AI), oncosis index (OI), the relationship between the expression amounts of apoptosis-related genes and AI were analyzed.

Results: Obvious pathological lesion appeared in retina 6 h after injury. Irreversible damage occurred 12-24 h after injury. The results of AI and OI indicated that the OI peak appeared 6 h after injury and then gradually declined, while the AI increased with the prolongation of time, and the AI was higher than OI in 12 h after injury. Immunohistochemical results indicated that there was no obvious bcl-2 protein expression change. Compared with the control group and the 3, 6, 12 and 24 h after the injury groups, the expressions of p53 and Caspase-3 were significantly improved and peaked at 12 h (P<0.01). Positive correlation existed among p53, Caspase-3 expression amount and cell apoptosis amount.

Conclusions: Apoptosis and oncosis of visual cells are the main reasons of retinal cell injury. p53 and Caspase-3 are the important factors in promoting the retinal cell apoptosis after eyeball rupture.