February 22, 2024
Keio University School of Medicine
A research group from the Department of Ophthalmology, Keio University School of Medicine, led by Associate Professor Toshihide Kurihara, Project Lecturer Shinichi Ikeda, and Chun-Han Chen (a student in the Doctoral Programs at the Graduate School of Medicine), in a joint study with Tsubota Laboratory, Inc. (CEO Kazuo Tsubota, Professor Emeritus at Keio University), has revealed through database analysis, bioinformatics, and animal experiments that scleral remodeling—the state in which the sclera (the so-called white of the eye) becomes more deformable during the development of myopia—is triggered by a decrease in the expression of the gene Thrombospondin-1 ( Thbs1 ) in the sclera. This in turn causes a reduction in scleral structural proteins and an increase in degradative enzymes.
This study not only clarifies the cause of the pathological changes occurring in the myopic sclera, thereby promoting the development of future preventive and therapeutic methods for myopia, but also demonstrates that combining biostatistics with experimental research makes it possible to quickly and accurately identify new myopia treatment strategies. As such, this research is considered to be of great social significance.
The results of this study were published in the international medical journal Molecular Medicine on February 14 (Greenwich Mean Time).
Please see below for the full press release.