Washington University School of Medicine Digital Commons@Becker Open Access Publications 1-1-2020 Alpha-crystallin mutations alter lens metabolites in mouse models of human cataracts Cheryl Frankfater Stephanie L. Bozeman Fong-Fu Hsu Usha P. Andley Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/open_access_pubs PLOS ONE RESEARCH ARTICLE Alpha-crystallin mutations alter lens metabolites in mouse models of human cataracts 1 2 1 2 Cheryl Frankfater , Stephanie L. Bozeman , Fong-Fu Hsu , Usha P. AndleyID * 1 Mass Spectrometry Resource, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, Metabolism, and Lipid Research, Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, United States of America, 2 Departments of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, United States of America a1111111111 a1111111111 *
[email protected] a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 Abstract Cataracts are a major cause of blindness worldwide and commonly occur in individuals over 70 years old. Cataracts can also appear earlier in life due to genetic mutations. The lens pro- OPEN ACCESS teins, αA- and αB-crystallins, are chaperone proteins that have important roles maintaining Citation: Frankfater C, Bozeman SL, Hsu F-F, protein solubility to prevent cataract formation. Mutations in the CRYAA and CRYAB crystal- Andley UP (2020) Alpha-crystallin mutations alter lin genes are associated with autosomal dominant early onset human cataracts. Although lens metabolites in mouse models of human studies about the proteomic and genomic changes that occur in cataracts have been cataracts. PLoS ONE 15(8): e0238081. https://doi. reported, metabolomics studies are very limited. Here, we directly investigated cataract org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238081 metabolism using gas-chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to analyze the metab- Editor: Ram Nagaraj, University of Colorado olites in adult Cryaa-R49C and Cryab-R120G knock-in mouse lenses.