Alteration of lens and retina textures from mice embryos with folic acid deficiency: image processing analysis

Abstract

Purpose: Folic Acid (FA) is an essential vitamin for embryonic development. It plays particularly a critical role in RNA, DNA, and protein synthesis. On the other hand, the collagen IV and laminin-1 are important proteins during embryonic development. This study was done to find if FA-deficiency at a short and a long-term in mothers could alter the tissue texture of retina and lens of the progeny. Methods: Collagen IV and laminin-1 were localized by immunohistochemistry in the lens and retina of the FA-deficient embryos. To carry out the image processing, texture segmentation was performed through canny edge detection and Fourier transform (FT). We defined a parameter, the grain size, to describe the texture of the lens and retina. A bootstrap method to estimate the distribution and confidence intervals of the mean, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis of the grain size has been developed. Results: Analysis through image processing using Matlab showed changes in the grain size between control and FA deficient groups in both studied molecules. Measures of texture based on FT exhibited changes in the directionality and arrangements of type IV collagen and laminin-1. Conclusions: Changes introduced by FA deficiency were visible in the short-term (two weeks) and evident in the long term (eight weeks) in both grain size and orientation of fibre structures in the tissues analysed (lens and retina). This is the first work devoted to study the effect of FA deficit in the texture of eye tissues using image processing techniques.

Nutritional Optic Neuropathies: State of the Art and Emerging Evidences

“…Moreover, folate deficiency seems to be related to an alteration of mitochondrial metabolism, due to a modification of the folate pathway which would involve the electron transport chain, and thereby reduce ATP production, in a similar way as it happens in Leber hereditary optic neuropathy [23]. Other hypotheses have been developed thanks to animal models: for example, folate concentration might be associated to macrophage-mediated inflammatory response [24], and also it could also affect the composition of extracellular matrix both in the retina and in lens [25].…”

Development of a polarization imaging method to detect paraffin‐embedded pathology tissues before applying other techniques

“…In previous studies, we have observed that maternal dietary FAD alters the expression of collagen IV and laminin‐1 into the lens and retina, and also reveals disorganization of fibers/cells orientation. [ 28, 29 ]…”

“…This may be due to increase in protein aggregates or highly concentrated proteins in lens fiber cells, and it would be compatible with previous findings where we showed an alteration in the expression and arrangement of ECM proteins. [ 28, 29, 40, 41 ] It is known that cataractogenesis is caused by light scattering due to random fluctuations in the refractive index. [ 42 ] These fluctuations may occur because of differences in the structure of the lens fiber cells involving alterations in the cell membrane, minimal changes in intercellular spacing, changes of structure within the cytoplasm or protein aggregation.…”

Study of statistical methods for texture analysis and their modern evolutions

“…This technique is also used for identifying the number of changes developed in the pattern and textures of any surface. 84…”