Lacrimal Gland Bioinformatics: A Neural Connection 
of Dry Eye and Aging

Doan Nguyen, PhD, Instructor

The goals of my laboratory are to understand how changes in innervation affects the integrity of the tear film and ocular surface, and to determine the mechanisms involved in regulation of lacrimal gland physiology.  The tear film maintains the optical quality of the cornea and protects the ocular surface from pathogens.  The tear film is composed of three layers, the largest is the middle, aqueous layer contributed mainly by the lacrimal gland.  This fluid contains growth factors and bactericidal agents. 

The function of the lacrimal gland is dependent on neurally-mediated inputs from stimulation of sensory nerve endings in the cornea.  Using a rabbit and rat denervation models, we showed that disruption of the main neural pathway to lacrimal gland secretion resulted in many clinical symptoms of dry eye.  Other ocular surface tissues were also affected. We reason that this model can also be used as an aging model, since corneal nerves activity is decrease with age, and that age is a major risk factor for the development of dry eye. We are using DNA microarray and bioinformatics to identify gene features, including secretory protein markers, that are found in common in the dry eye and rat aging models.

Other projects involved the development of a web service for mapping genes and proteins to several biological databases, including the EyeBank, and development of lacrimal gland cell-line.

 Dr. Nguyen's faculty page