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

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.