J Korean Ophthalmol Soc.  2002 Jul;43(7):1261-1268.

Expression of TGF-alpha, beta1, beta2 in Pterygial Mast cell

• Kim TH
• Seo SW
• Song JK

Abstract

PURPOSE: To evaluate whether TGF-alpha, beta1, beta2 are expressed in pterygial mast cell and the difference between each growth factor exists.
METHODS
We prepared 10 pieces each of excised normal conjunctiva, primary pterygium, recurrent pterygium from human eyes and then fixed those in 4% paraformaldehyde solution. The tissues were embedded in paraffin and slide samples taken from those. After that, we observed mast cells stained by immunohistochemistry against each of TGF-alpha,beta1 ,beta2 and compared the staining features between them, and we also confirmed metachromatic staining of the mast cell with toluidine blue.
RESULTS
As compared with normal conjunctiva, in primary and recurrent pterygia, those counts of mast cells expressing TGF-alpha, beta1, beta2 were increased respectively with statistical significance and especially, those counts for TGF-beta1 in primary pterygium were 9 times as high as in normal conjunctiva.
CONCLUSIONS
Pterygial mast cells are considered to play an important role in fibrovascular proliferation of pterygium by synthesizing and secretion of TGF-alpha, beta1, beta2 . Especially, TGF-beta1 is thought to play a more important role than TGF-alphaandbeta2 in primary pterygium.

Keyword

TGF-alpha; beta1; beta2 ; Mast cell; Pterygium

MeSH Terms

Conjunctiva
Humans
Immunohistochemistry
Mast Cells*
Paraffin
Pterygium
Tolonium Chloride
Transforming Growth Factor alpha*
Transforming Growth Factor beta1
Paraffin
Tolonium Chloride
Transforming Growth Factor alpha
Transforming Growth Factor beta1