THE HYPOTHERMIA MIMETIC SYNTHETIC MOLECULE ZR17-2 PREVENTS RETINAL LESIONS IN A MODEL OF EXPERIMENTAL COMPRESSION OF THE OPTIC NERVE.

REY-FUNES, M.; CONTARTESE, DS.; PELAEZ, R.; SOLIÑO M; FERNANDEZ, JC; CIRANNA, NS.; NAKAMURA,R.; SAROTTO, A.; DORFMAN, VB; ZAPICO, JM.; RAMOS, A.; DE PASCUAL-TERESA, D.; LÓPEZ, JJ.; LARRAYOZ, IM.; LOIDL, CF.; MARTÍNEZ, A.

Granada

Congreso; XXI Congreso de la Sociedad Española de Histología e Ingeniería Tisular. IX International Congress of Histology and Tissue Engineering. VIII Congreso Iberoamericano de Histología.; 2022

Sociedad Española de Histología e Ingeniería Tisular

Injuries to the optic nerve (ON) are a common occurrence that produces anterograde and retrograde axonal degeneration, with death of retinal ganglion cells and vision loss. Previously, we showed that ocular temperature reduction after experimental compression of the ON (intraorbital optic nerve crush, IONC) significantly diminishes vision loss, an effect probably mediated by cold inducible RNA-binding protein (CIRP) [1]. The synthetic molecule zr17-2 is a hypothermia mimetic able to prevent CIRP degradation in cultured cells [2]. Our aim was to evaluate the effect of zr17-2 on retinal lesions due to ON trauma. Adult male rats (n=28) were randomly distributed into 4 experimental groups: i) sham surgery with intravitreal injection of vehicle (CTL V); ii) sham surgery with intravitreal injection of 5 µl of 330 nmols/L zr17-2 (CTL ZR); iii) IONC surgery with intravitreal injection of vehicle (IONC); and iv) IONC surgery with intravitreal injection of zr17-2 (IONC ZR). Some animals were sacrificed 5 days after surgery and eyes processed for TUNEL. Others were subjected to electroretinography (ERG) 15 days after surgery. For ERG, animals were kept in the dark for 12 h and inspected for scotopic ERG and oscillatory potentials (OP) to evaluate the integrity of the visual pathway. Retinas of the CTL V and CTL ZR groups showed very few TUNEL-positive cells (Fig.1). In contrast, retinas of the IONC group had a significantly high number of apoptotic cells (p