title: A validated biorepository of retina and choroid tissues for gene expression studies.
abstract: Research studies on pathologies affecting the posterior segment of the eye are usually carried out either in animal models or cell lines of human origin that mimic the molecular patterns occurring in the human retina-pigment epithelium-choroid (RPC) complex in vivo. As this is not always the case, we were prompted to validate a biorepository of RPC tissues for research purposes. A PubMed literature search on "retina," "choroid," "bio-bank," or "biorepository" as keywords did not lead to any publication describing the collection and banking of samples from the RPC complex for research purposes. The possibility to obtain access to a validated collection of high quality human RPC tissues as starting material is likely to lead to more appropriate findings and treatments, which eventually may improve human ocular health. Here we show that when tissues are harvested (T <25 hours from donor death) and stored appropriately, RNAs are not degraded (RNA Integrity Number Values >8.0) and express specific genes and molecular/biochemical pathways occurring in the RPC complex. These quality controlled tissues/RNAs comprising the biorepository could therefore be used for gene expression studies by research scientists and clinicians interested in testing their hypotheses in a more appropriate setting, thus replacing studies performed on less relevant animal models and cells in vitro, and directly extrapolating the findings to human pathophysiology.
authors.affiliation: 1 International Center for Ocular Physiopathology (ICOP) , The Veneto Eye Bank Foundation, Venice, Italy .
authors.forename: Mohit
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Parekh
authors.forename: Luisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Montanini
authors.forename: Pellegrino
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Crafa
authors.forename: Gianni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Salvalaio
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ruzza
authors.forename: Anu
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Aaspõllu
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mora
authors.forename: JelkaG
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Orsoni
authors.forename: Diego
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ponzin
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ferrari
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D018070:Biological Specimen Banks; D002829:Choroid / Q000378:metabolism*; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006801:Humans; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012160:Retina / Q000378:metabolism*