The role of acidic organelles in the development of schistosomula of Schistosoma mansoni and their response to signalling molecules.

The cercariae of Schistosoma mansoni become transformed into schistosomula during host skin penetration. We have found that large acidophilic compartments are detected in schistosomula but not in cercariae or in any other stages of the parasite by use of the fluorescent dye LysoTracker, a dye specific for mammalian lysosomes. Some of these large acidic compartments incorporated monodansylcadaverine, a specific dye for autophagosomes. We have used potent inhibitors (wortmannin and 3-methyladenine) and a potent inducer (starvation) of autophagy to show that the pathway to the formation of the acidic compartments requires specific molecular signals from the environment and from the genome. Certain doses of ultraviolet light inhibited significantly the formation of the acidic compartments, which may indicate disruption of the lysosome/autophagosome pathway. We have also defined two proteins that are commonly associated with lysosomes and autophagosomes in mammalian cells, the microtubule-associated membrane protein (MAP-LC3) and lysosome-associated membrane protein (LAMP-1), in extracts of schistosomula. We suggest that the autophagy pathway could be developed in transformed schistosomula.

[Preoperative assessment of intraocular lens corrected vision]. / Präoperative Abschätzung des mit Intraokularlinsen erreichbaren Sehvermögens.

BACKGROUND: At present, preoperative estimation of the influence of intra-ocular lenses (IOL) on visual performance, that is not only based on visual acuity but on the whole contrast sensitivity function (CSF), is only possible with high efforts. METHODS: We describe a method to evaluate the CSF of a patient after IOL implantation. The method is based on the knowledge of a normal subject's CSF, and the modulation transfer function of the IOL that can be measured or computed. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Comparison of computed and measured CSF with monofocal and multifocal IOL shows that the method allows prediction of visual performance after implantation of the IOL.

Light-intensity distribution in eccentric photorefraction crescents.

We try to improve the accuracy of eccentric photorefraction by taking more information into account than just the size and tilt of the crescent. Based on Gaussian optics and the assumption of an isotropic scattering retina, a theoretical analysis of the light-intensity distribution in the pupils of astigmatic eyes is presented. The method is applied to different photorefractor setups (point light source, long linear light source, knife-edge aperture, and circular aperture). In the case of a knife-edge aperture the crescent structure can be formulated analytically. In the case of a circular aperture an analytic description is possible only for spherical refractive errors, but astigmatic refractive errors can be determined from crescent parameters with neural networks.

Multimeridional refraction: dependence of the measurement accuracy on the number of meridians refracted.

A Monte Carlo simulation of multimeridional refraction measurements was used to investigate the dependence of the accuracy of the measurement on the number of meridians refracted, N, and on the standard deviation of a measurement in a single meridian, sigma. For the description of the measurement errors, the residual refraction values were used, i.e., the parameters of the refraction remaining after application of the measured correction. The distributions of the residual refraction values were found to be independent of the "true" refraction values; in addition, by means of a factor square root of N/sigma, reduced residual refraction values could be defined which also were independent of N and sigma. A vector space proposed by Lakshminarayanan and Varadharajan (based on Long's power matrix) was used to represent the joint distribution of the residual refraction values in three-dimensional space. It was found to be a three-variate Gaussian distribution with zero mean and diagonal covariance matrix. It could further be shown that the vector space proposed by Harris is identical to the one used, up to a linear transformation. Several criteria, based on the one- and three-dimensional distributions and corresponding to different levels of accuracy, are discussed resulting in a wide range of answers about the number of meridians to be refracted.

Responses of retinal ganglion cells to eyeball deformation: a neurophysiological basis for "pressure phosphenes".

By means of microelectrodes, the activity of single neurons (on-center, off-center ganglion cells, latency class I and class II neurons) was recorded from the optic tract of anesthetized cats. Eyeball deformation in total darkness led fairly consistently to an activation of the on-center ganglion cells, while off-center ganglion cells were inhibited. The latency and strength of this activation or inhibition seemed to be mainly dependent on the strength of eyeball indentation and the location of the neurons relative to the point of eyeball indentation. Some on-center neurons (mostly latency class I) also exhibited a short activation at "deformation off". For comparison, the responses of retinal ganglion cells to eyeball deformation in a hydrostatically open system and to a sudden increase in the intraocular pressure (closed system) are described. The neurophysiological data are explained by the assumption that eyeball indentation leads to a nonuniform tangential stretch of the retina, which exerts a locally variable depolarization of horizontal cells. This horizontal cell depolarization leads either directly or via a feedback loop through cone pedicles to a depolarization of on-bipolars and a hyperpolarization of off-bipolars. These effects determine in turn the responses seen at the ganglion cell level. It is emphasized that eyeball deformation can be used as an independent tool in transmitter studies of the retina.

A new laser interferometer for the stimulation of pattern-reversal visual evoked potentials.

A laser interferometer for visual-evoked-potential (VEP) stimulation that allows a rapid pattern reversal in less than 0.5 ms and a continuous variation of the spatial frequency of the pattern is described. The interferometer is applied for the assessment of objective visual acuity. The Fourier transform of the VEP response to the rapid pattern reversal shows an extremely small bandwidth.