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Therapeutic Potential of Emricasan, a Pan-Caspase Inhibitor, in Reducing Cell Death and Extracellular Matrix Accumulation in Fuchs Endothelial Corneal Dystroph

ABSTRACT: This RNA-Seq dataset captures transcriptomic changes in the corneal endothelium of Col8a2Q455K/Q455K mice, a model of early-onset Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD), following treatment with the pan-caspase inhibitor emricasan. The experiment compared corneal endothelial cells from 28-week-old mice receiving twice-daily 0.1% emricasan eye drops (n=3) versus vehicle control (n=3) from 8 to 28 weeks of age. Differential expression analysis identified 1,345 differentially expressed genes (455 upregulated, 890 downregulated; |Log₂FC| ≥ 1.0, P < 0.05) in emricasan-treated versus control mice. Gene ontology and pathway analyses revealed significant changes in pathways related to ECM production, cell death, and cellular morphology. These transcriptomic changes correlate with the observed improvement in endothelial cell density, hexagonality, and reduction in guttae formation in emricasan-treated mice, providing molecular insights into how caspase inhibition may provide therapeutic benefit in FECD by modulating both apoptotic and ECM production pathways.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE292135 | GEO | 2025/03/22

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Transparency of the human cornea is necessary for vision. Fuchs Endothelial Corneal Dystrophy (FECD) is a bilateral, heritable degeneration of the corneal endothelium, and a leading indication for corneal transplantation in developed countries. While the early onset, and rarer, form of FECD has been linked to COL8A2 mutations, the more common, late onset form of FECD has genetic mutations linked to only a minority of cases. Epigenetic modifications that occur in FECD are unkonwn. Here, we report on and compare the DNA methyhlation landscape of normal human corneal endothelial (CE) tissue and CE from FECD patients using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 (HM450) DNA methylation array. We show that DNA methylation profiles are distinct between control and FECD samples. Differentially methylated probes (10,961) were identified in the FECD samples compared with the control samples, with the majority of probes being hypermethylated in the FECD samples. Genes containing differentially methylated sites were disproportionately annotated to ontological categories involving cytoskeletal organization, ion transport, hematopoetic cell differentiation, and cellular metabolism. Our results suggest that altered DNA methylation patterns may contribute to loss of corneal transparency in FECD through a global accumulation of sporadic DNA methylation changes in genes critical to basic CE biological processes Methylation of DNA is a key epigenetic mark that occurs in aging tissues. Altered DNA methlyation patterns have been observed in several late onset, and progressive ocular diseases including macular degeneration, glaucoma, and cataracts. While DNA methylation changes also occur in the common, late onset corneal dystrophy, FECD, has not been previously studied. Fuchs Endothelial Corneal Dystrophy (FECD) is a bilateral, heritable degeneration of the corneal endothelium, and a leading indicatioin for corneal transplantation in developed countries. Our study examined and compared the genome-scale DNA methylation profiels of corneal endothelial tissue from normal control and FECD patients using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 (HM450) DNA methylation array. We show that DNA methylation profiles are distinct between control and FECD samples. Differentially methylated probes (10,961) were identified in the FECD samples compared with the control samples, with the majority of probes being hypermethylated in the FECD samples. Genes containing differentially methylated sites were disproportionately annotated to ontological categories involving cytoskeletal organization, ion transport, hematopoetic cell differentiation, and cellular metabolism. Our findings suggest that alterations in DNA methylation may contribute to FECD pathogenesis by modifying the expression of genes with critical biological roles in the corneal endothelium. Our study has important clinical implications as FECD is a leading indication for corneal transplantationin the geriatric population. The effective medical treatment of FECD is a major unmet clinical challenge. Our findings suggest altered DNA methylation as a novel candidate therapeutic target in FECD

Project description:Fuchs’ endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD) is a progressive vision impairing disease caused by thickening of Descemet’s membrane and gradual degeneration and loss of corneal endothelial cells. The aim of this study was to identify differentially expressed genes between FECD-affected and unaffected corneal endothelium to gain insight into the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying this disease. Microarray gene expression analysis was performed on total RNA from FECD-affected and unaffected corneal endothelium-Descemet’s membrane (CE-DM) specimens using the Illumina HumanHT-12 v3.0 expression array. RNA from pools of FECD-affected (n=3 per pool) and individual unaffected (n=3) specimens was used for comparison. Altered expression of a sub-set of differentially expressed genes was validated by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) in independent specimens. Bioinformatics analysis was performed using InnateDB to reveal functional relationships among the differentially expressed genes and molecular pathways involved in the disease. A total of 16,513 genes were found expressed in the corneal endothelium of which 142 genes were differentially expressed between FECD-affected and unaffected endothelium (log2 fold-change ≥1.5, corrected p-value ≤0.05). Most of the genes were up-regulated (126) and a small proportion down-regulated (16) in affected corneal endothelium. Of the twelve genes prioritised for validation, differential expression of 10 genes, including those ranked 57th and 81st by significance validated by qRT-PCR (8 up-regulated and 2 downregulated, corrected p ≤0.05), one gene showed a trend for up-regulation in affected endothelium, consistent with the microarray analysis and another was up-regulated in an independent study indicating robustness of the differential expression dataset. Bioinformatic analysis revealed significant over-representation of differentially expressed genes in extracellular matrix reorganisation, cellular remodelling, immune response, and inflammation. Network analysis showed functional inter-relatedness of the majority of the dysregulated genes and revealed known direct functional relationships between 20 of the genes; many of these genes have roles in macrophage differentiation, phagocytosis and inflammation. This is the second report of microarray gene expression analysis in FECD. This study revealed a set of highly dysregulated genes in the corneal endothelium in FECD. More than a third of the dysregulated genes in the disease have been discovered for the first time and thus are novel. The dysregulated genes strongly suggest the presence of phagocytic cells, most likely immune cells, and inflammation in corneal endothelium in the disease. This study provides a molecular framework for delineating the mechanisms underlying these cellular processes in FECD.

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Therapeutic Potential of Emricasan, a Pan-Caspase Inhibitor, in Reducing Cell Death and Extracellular Matrix Accumulation in Fuchs Endothelial Corneal Dystroph

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