Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is an autoimmune blistering skin disease caused by autoantibody against the hemidesmosomal protein BP180. B regulatory cells (Bregs) are crucial in maintaining self-tolerance and suppressing autoantibody production. Blood samples were collected from thirty-six BP patients and thirty healthy volunteers. The number of CD19 + CD24 hi CD27 + Bregs was analyzed by flow cytometry. Elisa assay was performed to detect the level of anti-BP180 autoantibodies produced by patient-derived peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) with Bregs deletion or without. In addition, T cells were cultured with autogenous Bregs from BP patients or healthy controls respectively, then the proliferation and cytokine productions in these T cells were detected by flow cytometry. Finally, the expressions of IL-10 and TNF-a in Bregs were further examined. Then etanercept was added into the culture of patients-derived PBMCs to investigate the role of TNF-a in autoantibody production. The frequency of circulating CD19 + CD24 hi CD27 + Bregs increased in BP patients compared with healthy controls. However, patient-derived Bregs were impaired in suppressing the production of specific anti-BP180 autoantibodies. These patients-derived Bregs were also defective in suppressing CD4 + T cell activation. Further, patient-derived Bregs produced comparable level of IL-10, while aberrantly secreted TNF-a. Etanercept could inhibit the autoantibody production in patient-derived PBMCs. Our results suggested that BP patient-derived Bregs were impaired in suppressing CD4 + T cell activation in a manner of aberrant secretion of TNF-a, rather than IL-10, thus contributing to the autoantibody production.

Hyperopic refractions in the mouse eye are consistent with previous retinoscopic data. The optics of the mouse eye is far from being diffraction-limited at 1.5-mm pupil, with significant amounts of spherical aberration and coma. However, estimates of MTFs from wave aberrations are higher than previously reported using a double-pass technique, resulting in smaller depth-of-field predictions. Despite the large degradation imposed by the aberrations these are lower than the amount of aberrations typically corrected by available correction techniques (i.e., adaptive optics). On the other hand, aberrations do not seem to be the limiting factor in the mouse spatial resolution. While the mouse optics are much more degraded than in other experimental models of myopia, its tolerance to large amounts of defocus does not seem to be determined entirely by the ocular aberrations.

No abstract

We performed measurements of refraction (with retinoscopy), axial length (with ultrasound biometry) and ocular aberrations (with a custom-built Hartmann-Shack aberrometer) on seven awake White-Leghorn chicks occluded monolaterally with diffusers for two weeks. Treatment started on the first day after hatching (day 0) and measurements were conducted on several days between day 0 and 13. Non-occluded eyes experienced normal emmetropization (decreasing hyperopia at 0.2 +/- 0.09 D/day and increasing axial length at 0.05 +/- 0.03 mm/day), while occluded eyes developed axial myopia (1.50 +/- 0.2 D/day and 0.12 +/- 0.02 mm/day). Interocular differences in refraction and axial length by day 13 were on average 17.43 D and 0.86 mm, respectively. Monochromatic high order aberrations decreased with age in both eyes. Average RMS (for 1.5 mm pupil diameter) decreased from 0.11 +/- 0.03 at day 0 to 0.06 +/- 0.03 microm (day 13) in occluded eyes, and from 0.12 +/- 0.05 to 0.03 +/- 0.01 microm in non-occluded eyes. MTF-based optical quality metrics also show an improvement with age. However, while this improvement occurs in both eyes, after day 8 myopic eyes tend to show significantly higher amounts of aberrations (and consequently worse best-corrected optical quality) than normal eyes. The degradation imposed by aberrations is small compared to that imposed by defocus and the diffuser. These results suggest a decrease of aberrations during development which does not seem to be visually guided. Myopic eyes showed slightly worse optical quality than normal eyes, suggesting that the geometrical changes resulting from excessive ocular axial growth also affect the optical quality of the ocular components.

Automated refraction is highly repeatable and can be used to monitor postsurgical refractive changes. Whereas corneal swelling becomes stable 2 weeks after cataract surgery, automated refraction becomes stable after 1 week and can be used to accurately prescribe corrective lenses at that time.