Comparative analysis of rodent lens morphometrics and biomechanical properties
| Author(s) | Cheheltani, Sepideh | |
| Author(s) | Islam, Sadia T. | |
| Author(s) | Malino, Heather | |
| Author(s) | Abera, Kalekidan | |
| Author(s) | Aryal, Sandeep | |
| Author(s) | Forbes, Karen | |
| Author(s) | Parreno, Justin | |
| Author(s) | Fowler, Velia M. | |
| Date Accessioned | 2025-05-02T15:11:42Z | |
| Date Available | 2025-05-02T15:11:42Z | |
| Publication Date | 2025-04-03 | |
| Description | This article was originally published in Frontiers in Ophthalmology by Frontiers Media. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/fopht.2025.1562583. © 2025 Cheheltani, Islam, Malino, Abera, Aryal, Forbes, Parreno and Fowler. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. | |
| Abstract | Introduction: Proper ocular lens function requires biomechanical flexibility, which is reduced during aging. As increasing lens size has been shown to correlate with lens biomechanical stiffness in aging, we tested the hypothesis that whole lens size determines gross biomechanical stiffness by comparing lenses of varying sizes from three rodent species (mice, rats, and guinea pigs). Methods: Coverslip compression assay was performed to measure whole lens biomechanics. Whole mount staining on fixed lenses, followed by confocal microscopy, was conducted to measure lens microstructures. Results: Among the three species, guinea pig lenses are the largest, rat lenses are smaller than guinea pig lenses, and mouse lenses are the smallest of the three. We found that rat and guinea pig lenses are stiffer than the much smaller mouse lenses. However, despite guinea pig lenses being larger than rat lenses, whole lens stiffness between guinea pigs and rats is not different. This refutes our hypothesis and indicates that lens size does not solely determine lens stiffness. We next compared lens microstructures, including nuclear size, capsule thickness, epithelial cell area, fiber cell widths, and suture organization between mice, rats, and guinea pigs. The lens nucleus is the largest in guinea pigs, followed by rats, and mice. However, the rat nucleus occupies a larger fraction of the lens. Both lens capsule thickness and fiber cell widths are the largest in guinea pigs, followed by mice and then rats. Epithelial cells are the largest in guinea pigs, and there are no differences between mice and rats. In addition, the lens suture shape appears similar across all three species. Discussion: Overall, our data indicates that whole lens size and microstructure morphometrics do not correlate with lens stiffness, indicating that factors contributing to lens biomechanics are complex and likely multifactorial. | |
| Sponsor | The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NEI R01EY017724) (VF and JP). SI was supported by a predoctoral fellowship from the Chemistry-Biology Interface Training Grant (NIH/NIGMS T32GM133395) and a Doctoral Fellowship for Excellence Award from the University of Delaware. KA received an undergraduate Summer Scholar Award from the Delaware INBRE (NIH/NIGMS P20GM103446). This research also benefitted from the BioStore data management services of the Delaware Biotechnology Institute and Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Delaware ((RRID: SCR_017696), supported by NIH (NIGMS S10OD028725) and DE-INBRE (NIH/NIGMS P20GM103446). | |
| Citation | Cheheltani S, Islam ST, Malino H, Abera K, Aryal S, Forbes K, Parreno J and Fowler VM (2025) Comparative analysis of rodent lens morphometrics and biomechanical properties. Front. Ophthalmol. 5:1562583. doi: 10.3389/fopht.2025.1562583 | |
| ISSN | 2674-0826 | |
| URL | https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/36094 | |
| Language | en_US | |
| Publisher | Frontiers in Ophthalmology | |
| dc.rights | Attribution 4.0 International | en |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | |
| Keywords | lens stiffness | |
| Keywords | lens biomechanics | |
| Keywords | morphometrics | |
| Keywords | lens microstructures | |
| Keywords | allometry | |
| Title | Comparative analysis of rodent lens morphometrics and biomechanical properties | |
| Type | Article |
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