Age-related competence of TGF-β response in rat lens epithelium correlates with receptor expression

Abstract

Purpose. Previous studies showed that TGF-β can induce changes characteristic of subcapsular cataracts in lens explants and whole lenses in vitro. However, the TGF-β-induced response is age-dependent with lenses from weanling and adult, but not neonatal, rats responding. To investigate whether this observed age-dependence is due to differences in receptor expression, the distribution of TGF-β receptors Type I and II was examined in neonatal and weanling rat lenses. Methods. Methanol-fixed frozen sections of eyes from neonatal (P3) and weanling (P21) rats were processed for immunofluorescence using affinity-purified polyclonal antibodies to peptide sequences specific for either Type I or Type..