Association between interferon beta levels and neuro-retinal degeneration in primary angle closure glaucoma
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: Glaucoma is one of the major causes of irreversible blindness worldwide. The vision loss here is related to elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) mediated degeneration of the optic nerve. Obstruction to aqueous humour outflow is the main reason for increased IOP and the two major types of glaucoma based on this include primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) and primary angle closure glaucoma (PACG). Current strategies are directed against reducing IOP, but progression of neurodegeneration continues despite managing IOP in some patients. This suggests the existence of and the need to explore additional mechanisms that may contribute to disease progression. Interferon beta (IFNβ), an immunomodulator has been used quite effectively in the management of neurodegenerative conditions, hence its role in glaucoma is worthy of investigation. Objective: To study the relationship between the endogenous expression of IFNβ in the ocular tissues with reference to the severity of PACG. Methods: Iris, trabecular meshwork (TM) and aqueous humour (AH) were obtained surgically during trabeculectomy from PACG (n=34) patients operated as part of standard of care. Severity of glaucoma was based on Visual Field Index on Humphrey visual fields 24-2 program. Further categories based on type of medication use were also done. RNA extracted from iris and TM was used to determine the expression of IFNβ by quantitative-PCR and IFNβ in AH was measured using ELISA. Institutional ethics committee approval was obtained for the study. Results: Normalized IFNβ gene expression in iris was lower in severe (0.0557±0.01) compared to mild/moderate (0.1197±0.04) cases. Likewise, its expression in TM was reduced in severe (0.0745±0.06) compared to mild/moderate (0.1945±0.11) cases.IFNβ levels in aqueous humour was lower in severe (149±36 pg/µg of total protein) compared to mild/moderate (439±13 pg/µg of total protein) cases. Anti-glaucoma medications with or without prostaglandin analogs did not alter the trend of lower expression of IFNβ in severe compared to mild/moderate cases in iris and TM. Conclusion: Decreased levels of IFNβ observed in severe cases suggest that it can predispose to the neurodegeneration in glaucoma. However, its causal role and relevance in theragnostics are yet to be explored.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".