title: The blood-aqueous barrier in health and disease.
abstract: The blood-aqueous barrier of the eye is composed by tight junctions in the ciliary process nonpigmented epithelium, the endothelial cells in the iris vasculature, and the inner wall endothelium of Schlemm's canal. Tight junctions are gatekeepers of the paracellular transport limiting the selective diffusion of ions and small solutes through the space between neighboring cells. Tight junctions (ie, junctional adhesion molecules, claudins, occludins, zonula occludens, cingulin) are part of the apical junctional complex that also includes the adherens junctions (ie, cadherin-catenin and nectin-afadin complexes) and the gap junctions (ie, connexins). These junctional complexes respond rapidly to pharmacologic agents and physiological changes. Barrier dysfunction can contribute to the pathophysiology of inflammatory ocular diseases in a passive way by the vascular leakage of blood-borne molecules and inflammatory cells into the anterior segment of the eye.
authors.affiliation: *Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT †Instituto Oftalmológico Fernández-Vega, Oviedo, Spain.
authors.forename: Miguel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Coca-Prados
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001692:Biological Transport; D018916:Blood-Aqueous Barrier / Q000502:physiology*; D002924:Ciliary Body / Q000378:metabolism; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000378:metabolism; D017889:Exfoliation Syndrome / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D019108:Tight Junctions / Q000378:metabolism