The great progress achieved in eye health in the recent forty years laid the foundation for further promoting the eye health in China. China is a developing country and is facing some challenges in eye health, including: with the huge population and aging, the number of age-related eye disease is increasing; China is still a country with the most blindness and moderated and severe visual impairment; the resource of the ophthalmic service is insufficient and maldistributed. The " Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” period is a key period and an opportunity period for the eye health. The central government pays more attention to the national health, including eye health, and proposes the goal of building a healthy China. That is a great opportunity for further promoting eye health. We should get to the points in promoting the eye health: people aged fifty or above are the priority population, rural and poverty areas and the mid and west regions are the priority areas, and cataract and uncorrected refractive error are the priority eye diseases.
Objective To make the diagnosis of a pedigree of X-linked congenital stational night blindness(CSNB) and to identify the disease-causing gene. Methods Clinical examination and family analysis were made. Venous blood was drawn from 5 affected and 16 unaffected individuals from the family. Genomic DNA was extracted. The locus of the candidate gene was mapped by linkage study. Mutation was screened by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of the candidate gene exons and flanked introns. The PCR products are directly sequenced. The healthy people in and out of the family who were selected according to certain standards were as the control. Results A Chinese family with X-linked complete congenital stationary night blindness (CSNB1) was diagnosed. A missense mutation A772C (T258P) in exon 2 of NYX gene was identified in all affected patients and all female carriers were heterozygous. This mutation was neither found in normal family members nor among 110 unrelated normal controls. Conclusion A novel mutation of NYX gene with threonine to proline change is responsible for this Chinese CSNB1 family. (Chin J Ocul Fundus Dis, 2007, 23: 184-188)
Objective To investigate the genetic interaction of HLA-DQB1 promoter and coding alleles in the pathogenesis of Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada syndrome (VKH). Methods Eighty-eight Chinese Han patients with VKH and eighty-eight non-VKH normal controls were enrolled in this study. DNA was extracted from white blood cells of the subjects by phenolchloroform method. Thirteen alleles were genotyped by polymerase chain reaction-sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP), polymerase chain reaction-single strand conformation polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) and clone-sequencing was applied to determine the polymorphisms of the promoter and coding regions of HLA-DQB1 gene. Chromas and Bioedit software were used to analyze the sequences of the promoter of HLA-DQB1. Chi-square test and Fisher exact test were the statistical methods. Relationships among single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the promoter and coding region were analyzed. Results Twelve of thirteen already known HLA-DQB1 alleles were genotyped by PCR-SSP in VKH patients. The most frequent allele in VKH patients was HLA-DQB10401 (0.318, 56∶176) which was significantly higher in patients than that in normal controls (0.045, 8∶176) (chi;2＝44.00, P＝0.000, OR＝9.8). So was for HLA-DQB10303 (0.068 vs. 0.006, chi;2＝9.67, P＝0.002, OR＝12.81). In contrast, the frequency of HLA-DQB10601 (0.017 vs.0.096, chi;2＝10.39, P＝0.001, OR＝0.16) and HLA-DQB10302 (0.062 vs. 0.193,chi;2＝13.48, P＝0.000, OR＝0.28) in VKH patients were significantly lower than normal controls. Twelve SNP were found in all subjects. The frequency of C allele at position -189C/A in VKH patients was significantly higher than that in controls (0.324 vs. 0.074, chi;2＝45.92, P＝0.000). However, the frequency of G allele at position -227G/A in VKH patients was significantly lower than that in the normal controls (0.011 vs. 0.108, chi;2＝15.63,P＝0.000). The frequency of combination of susceptible alleles in promoter and coding area （-189C and HLA-DQB10401） in VKH patients was statistically higher than that in controls, the frequency of combination of resistant alleles in control (-227G and HLA-DQB10601) was higher than that in VKH patients. Conclusions The specific interactions of SNP in the promoter and coding alleles of HLA-DQB1 are associated with the pathogenesis of VKH.