Epigallocatechin gallate delays age-related cataract development via the RASSF2/AKT pathway.

Age-related cataract (ARC) is a common eye disease, the main cause of which is oxidative stress-mediated apoptosis of lens epithelial cells (LECs). Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) is the most potent antioxidant in green tea. Our results demonstrated that EGCG could effectively reduce apoptosis of LECs and retard lens clouding in aged mice. By comparing transcriptome sequencing results of three groups of mice (young control, untreated aged, and EGCG-treated) and screening using GO and KEGG analyses, we selected RASSF2 as the effector gene of EGCG for mechanistic exploration. We verified that the differential expression of RASSF2 was associated with the occurrence of ARC in clinical samples and mouse tissues by immunohistochemistry and western blotting, respectively. We showed that high RASSF2 expression plays a crucial role in the oxidative induction of apoptosis in LECs, as revealed by overexpression and interference experiments. Further studies showed that RASSF2 mediates the inhibitory effect of EGCG on apoptosis and ARCogenesis in LECs by regulating AKT (Ser473) phosphorylation. In this study, we found for the first time the retarding effect of EGCG on lens clouding in mice and revealed the mechanism of action of RASSF2/AKT in it, which provides a theoretical basis for the targeted treatment of EGCG.

MiR-433 inhibits retinoblastoma malignancy by suppressing Notch1 and PAX6 expression.

Retinoblastoma (RB) is the most frequent primary intraocular cancer. It has been demonstrated by previous studies that retinoblastoma is initiated primarily by the inactivation of the retinoblastoma Rb1 gene in retinal cells. However, additional genetic alterations than Rb1 mutation could play important roles in the process of transforming benign retinal cells into retinoblastoma tumor cells. In this study, we identified that microRNA miR-433 is one of such genetic factors. We found that the expression levels of miR-433 were downregulated in RB tissues. We also determined that miR-433 negatively regulated RB cell proliferation, migration and invasion, and induced cell cycle arrest and apoptosis of RB cells. We used bioinformatics method to predict and confirmed that Notch1 and PAX6 were miR-433 target genes in RB cells. Importantly, we demonstrated that restoration of Notch1 and PAX6 expression partially rescued the inhibition of cell proliferation and metastasis induced by miR-433 overexpression, suggesting that miR-433 regulates RB cell proliferation and metastasis through suppressing the expression of Notch1 and PAX6.