BackgroundTo evaluate the role of optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) in observation of fundus vascular abnormalities.MethodsPatients (n = 50, 10 in each group) with fundus disorders including branch retinal vein occlusion (BRVO), non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR), proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV) were examined. They underwent imaging of OCTA and fluorescein angiography/indocyanine green angiography. The split-spectrum amplitude-decorrelation angiography algorithm was employed to obtain angiography within a 6 × 6 mm scanning area at the posterior retina. Segmentation algorithm was used to obtain 2-dimensional images from arbitrary layers. The OCTA features were analyzed and compared with the findings of conventional angiography. The contralateral eyes of the patients with BRVO and the eyes of 20 healthy volunteers served as controls.ResultsOCTA showed precise images of normal and abnormal vasculature in the posterior retina and choroid by the given layers. Vascular abnormalities such as enlarged foveal avascular zone (FAZ), non-perfusion area of retina, microaneurysm, retinal neovascularization, choroidal neovascularization (CNV), branching vascular network and polypoidal lesions in choroid were clearly displayed by OCTA.ConclusionsOCTA provided a better projection of vascular pathologies of the posterior retina and choroid and could determine the precise location of the vascular lesion. The noninvasive OCTA can benefit the diagnosis of vascular abnormalities in the posterior retina and choroid.

PURPOSE. We evaluate the effect of choroidal vessel density on the residual length of the ellipsoid zone (EZ) and visual function in patients with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA). METHODS. Fifty-three patients with RP (n ¼ 101 eyes) and 53 normal participants (n ¼ 76 eyes) were enrolled in this study. Patients with RP were assigned to three groups according to their best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA). All patients underwent ophthalmologic examinations, including BCVA, fundus examination performed with a slit-lamp using an indirect 90 diopter (D) lens, OCTA, full-field electroretinogram (ERG), and visual field. The choroidal vessel density in the choriocapillaris-Sattler's layer (D C-S), Haller's layer (D H), horizontal length of the ellipsoid (HEL), and vertical length of the ellipsoid (VEL) were assessed using OCTA and Adobe Photoshop CS3 extended software. RESULTS. A significantly increasing impairment of choroidal vessel density (D C-S and D H) was characterized in the RP groups compared to those of the controls (P < 0.05 for all). The magnitude of the reduction in the DC-S and DH was much easier to identify for more severely impaired BCVA in the RP groups (P < 0.05 for all). The D C-S had the strongest correlation with the HEL, VEL, BCVA, visual field, and b-wave amplitude (r ¼ 0.735, r ¼ 0.753, r ¼ À0.843, r ¼ 0.579, and r ¼ 0.671, respectively). CONCLUSIONS. Using noninvasive OCTA, choroidal microcirculation, especially in the small/ middle choroidal vessel layers, was a prominent factor affecting the EZ, visual acuity, visual field, and recordable ERG b-wave amplitude of patients with RP. This may provide new insights into the progress mechanism and treatment of RP.

Micrornas (mirnas) are upstream regulators of gene expression and are involved in several biological processes. The purpose of the present study was to obtain a detailed spatiotemporal miRNA expression profile in mouse retina, to identify one or more mirnas that are key to mouse retinal development and to investigate the roles and mechanisms of these mirnas. The mirna expression pattern of the developing mouse retina was acquired from locked nucleic acid microarrays. data were processed to identify differentially expressed mirnas (de-mirnas) using the linear model in Python 3.6. Following bioinformatics analysis and reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction validation, 8 mirnas (mir-9-5p, mir-130a-3p, mir-92a-3p, mir-20a-5p, mir-93-5p, mir-9-3p, mir-709 and miR-124) were identified as key DE-miRNAs with low variability during mouse retinal development. Gene ontology analysis revealed that the target genes of the de-mirnas were enriched in cellular metabolic processes. Kyoto encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis demonstrated that the target genes of the de-mirnas were significantly enriched in Pi3K/aKT/mTor, class o of forkhead box transcription factors, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MaPK), neurotrophin and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β signaling, as well as focal adhesion and the axon guidance pathway. Pi3K, aKT, PTen, MaPK1, Son of Sevenless, sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1, Bcl-2l11, TGF-β receptor type 1/2 and integrin α (iTGa)/iTGaB, which are key components of the aforementioned pathways and were revealed to be target genes of several of the de-mirnas. The present study used a linear model to identify several de-mirnas, as well as their target genes and associated pathways, which may serve crucial roles in mouse retinal development. Therefore, the results obtained in the present study may provide the groundwork for further experiments.

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