Project description:This study aimed to investigate whether inflammatory dry eye disease (DED) is accompanied by abnormal lipid metabolic remodeling at the ocular surface. Tear samples were collected from patients with DED and matched healthy controls. Lipidomics profiling was performed using LC–MS/MS with a standardized acquisition and computational analysis workflow. Global non-targeted metabolomic analysis revealed extensive alterations in tear lipid composition in the DED group relative to controls. Multivariate statistical modeling, including principal component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA), demonstrated clear separation between DED and control cohorts, confirming a distinct metabolic phenotype in DED. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering further identified a reproducible disease-specific lipidomic signature. Significantly dysregulated metabolites included multiple lipid classes, particularly sphingolipids, phosphatidylcholines (PCs), and lysophospholipids. Mechanistically, differentially regulated lipid species converged on coordinated functional modules governing ER–mitochondria lipid crosstalk, including MAM-dependent phospholipid flux (PC/PE/PI/PS), neutral lipid buffering (TG/DG), and sphingolipid inflammatory gating (Cer/SM). Pathway enrichment analysis showed that lipids elevated in DED samples were predominantly associated with lipid metabolism and sphingolipid metabolism pathways. This dataset provides a comprehensive resource for understanding lipid metabolic reprogramming at the ocular surface in inflammatory dry eye disease.
Project description:This study aimed to determine whether dry eye disease (DED) is accompanied by ocular-surface lipid remodeling and whether such changes converge on organelle stress–associated pathways in a mouse model of inflammatory dry eye. Tear samples were collected from mice and analyzed by LC–MS/MS–based non-targeted lipidomics using a standardized workflow for sample collection, data acquisition, and computational processing. Global differential analysis revealed extensive alterations in tear lipid composition, with a substantial number of lipid features significantly upregulated or downregulated in the dry eye group compared with healthy controls, indicating robust metabolic remodeling rather than stochastic variation. Among the significantly altered lipid species, multiple lipid classes involved in membrane homeostasis and lipid signaling were prominently dysregulated, including phospholipid and fatty acid–associated species such as PE, PC, PI, and free fatty acids, which showed coordinated changes. These lipid shifts collectively indicated disruption of lipid programs that support membrane remodeling and stress adaptation at the ocular surface, consistent with a pathological state characterized by inflammatory stress and epithelial vulnerability. Pathway enrichment analysis of differentially abundant lipids further supported this interpretation, with dysregulated lipids enriched in pathways involved in glycerophospholipid metabolism, arachidonic acid/linoleic acid metabolism, and additional stress- and inflammation-associated programs, linking tear lipid remodeling to inflammatory amplification and impaired barrier homeostasis. This dataset provides a comprehensive resource for understanding tear lipid metabolic reprogramming at the ocular surface in a mouse model of inflammatory dry eye disease.
Project description:Recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV) is the leading platform for gene therapy in ocular disease. Progress for gene therapy has been hindered by AAV-induced inflammation, which limits dose escalation and long-term efficacy. Characterisation of the ocular immune response to AAV in mice has been restricted to young animals and demonstrate activation of microglia, antigen presentation and a dominant T cell lymphocyte infiltration. The extent of the inflammatory response alters with age and sex and these factors have not been fully represented in the pre-clinical development of ocular AAV gene therapies. Here, we intravitreally inject a null AAV2 vector in young (3-month), middle aged (9-month) and old (18-month) Cx3cr1-creER:R26tdTomato+/- mice of both sexes. Applying clinical imaging, flow cytometric analyses and bulk-sequencing of sorted resident microglia we interrogate the impact of sex and age on the longitudinal response of both microglia and infiltrating cellular response to AAV. Young animals have a dynamic response, with a peak in inflammation at D10-12 and signs of clinical resolution by D28. Despite similar kinetics in the inflammatory response between young male and females, sex differences are observed in the magnitude of the transcriptional response by microglia and the adaptive component of the infiltrating response. With age, the inflammation increases and persists after AAV2 injection. Based on the microglia transcriptional response to AAV, males maintain similar signature across age, although enhanced with increasing age. Contrary, females have greater divergence in their inflammatory response across age. Of particular note, old females have enriched cellular stress and inflammatory microglia gene signatures, with corresponding retinal degeneration. These findings inform crucial sex and age differences for therapeutic application of ocular gene therapy. Our dataset highlight the need to further define these differences to appropriately tackle AAV immunogenicity for all populations.
Project description:The principal aim of this work was to investigate the methylation profiles of specific ocular tissues, and compare this profile to matched peripheral blood. Matched human blood and eye tissue were obtained post-mortem (n=8) and DNA methylation profiling performed on blood, neurosensory retina, retinal pigment epithelium (RPE)/choroid and optic nerve tissue using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 platform.