Physiology and Pharmacology Differential and Altered Spatial Distribution of Complement Expression in Age-Related Macular Degeneration John T. Demirs, Junzheng Yang, Maura A. Crowley, Michael Twarog, Omar Delgado, Yubin Qiu, Stephen Poor, Dennis S. Rice, Thaddeus P. Dryja,* Karen Anderson,** and Sha-Mei Liao Department of Ophthalmology, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States Correspondence: Sha-Mei Liao, 22 PURPOSE. Dysregulation of the alternative complement pathway is a major pathogenic Windsor Street, Cambridge, MA mechanism in age-related macular degeneration. We investigated whether locally synthe- 02139, USA; sized complement components contribute to AMD by profiling complement expression
[email protected]. in postmortem eyes with and without AMD. Current affiliation: *Cogan Eye METHODS. AMD severity grade 1 to 4 was determined by analysis of postmortem acquired Pathology Laboratory, Massachusetts fundus images and hematoxylin and eosin stained histological sections. TaqMan (donor Eye and Ear, Boston, Massachusetts, eyes n = 39) and RNAscope/in situ hybridization (n = 10) were performed to detect United States. = ** Biogen, Cambridge, complement mRNA. Meso scale discovery assay and Western blot (n 31) were used to Massachusetts, United States. measure complement protein levels. Received: September 2, 2020 RESULTS. The levels of complement mRNA and protein expression were approximately Accepted: May 19, 2021 15- to 100-fold (P < 0.0001–0.001) higher in macular retinal pigment epithelium Published: June 23, 2021 (RPE)/choroid tissue than in neural retina, regardless of AMD grade status. Complement Citation: Demirs JT, Yang J, Crowley mRNA and protein levels were modestly elevated in vitreous and the macular neural MA, et al.