Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor Type 2 (PAI-2), a protein found in various cell types including the skin, has been discovered in the tissue covering the eye and may have future clinical implications in various pathologies of the ocular surface such as eye infection or dry eye, according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University.
The researchers, led by Mina Massaro-Giordano, M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania's Scheie Eye Institute, and Marcella Macaluso, Ph.D., of the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research at Temple University, published their study,
"Cytoplasmic and nuclear interaction between Rb family proteins and PAI-2: a physiological crosstalk in human corneal and conjunctival epithelial cells," in Cell Death and Differentiation (www.nature.com/cdd).
They recently presented their findings at the annual meeting of the Association of Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) in Florida, which was attended by over 10,000 researchers.
PAI-2, in either extracellular or secreted form, is a multifunctional protein that plays a role in cell differentiation, in prevention of programmed cell death, in the regulation of cell proliferation, in the inhibition of microbial proteinases and in the protection against stromal degradation.