Senmao Li

The lacrimal gland is responsible for maintaining the health of the ocular surface through the production of tears. However, our understanding of the immune system within the lacrimal gland is currently limited. Therefore, in this study, we utilized single-cell RNA sequencing and bioinformatic analysis to identify and analyze immune cells and molecules present in the lacrimal glands of normal mice. A total of 34,891 cells were obtained from the lacrimal glands of mice and classified into 18 distinct cell clusters using Seurat clustering. Within these cell populations, 26 different immune cell subpopulations were identified, including T cells, innate lymphocytes, macrophages, mast cells, dendritic cells, and B cells. Network analysis revealed complex cell-cell interactions between these immune cells, with particularly significant interactions observed among T cells, macrophages, plasma cells, and dendritic cells. Interestingly, T cells were found to be the main source of ligands for the Thy1 signaling pathway, while M2 macrophages were identified as the primary target of this pathway. Moreover, some of these immune cells were validated using immunohistological techniques. Collectively, these findings highlight the abundance and interactions of immune cells and provide valuable insights into the complexity of the lacrimal gland immune system and its relevance to associated diseases.

Purpose: To determine age-and sex-related changes in periocular morphology in Caucasians using a standardized protocol. Methods: Healthy Caucasian volunteers aged 18–35 and 60–90 years old were recruited from the Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, Cologne, between October 2018 and May 2020. Volunteers with facial asymmetry, facial deformities, history of facial trauma, facial surgery, botox injection, eyelid ptosis, strabismus, or nystagmus, were excluded. Standardized three-dimensional facial photos of 68 young volunteers and 73 old volunteers were taken in this clinical practice. Position changes of endocanthion, pupil center, and exocanthion were analyzed in different age and gender groups, including palpebral fissure width (PFW): distance between endocanthions (En-En), pupil centers (Pu–Pu), exocanthions (Ex-Ex), endocanthion and nasion (En-Na), pupil center and nasion (Pu-Na), exocanthion and nasion (Ex-Na), endocanthion and pupil center (Pu-En), exocanthion and pupil center (Pu-Ex), and palpebral fissure inclination (PFI); angle of endocanthions to nasion (En-Na-En), pupils to nasion (Pu-Na-Pu), exocanthions to nasion (Ex-Na-Ex); endocanthion inclination (EnI), and exocanthion inclination (ExI). Results: PFW, En-En, Ex-Na, Pu-Ex, PFI, ExI, and Ex-Na-Ex were significantly different between the young and old groups (p ≤ 0.004). There were sex-related differences in PFW, Ex-Ex, En-Na, Pu-Na, Ex-Na, Pu-En, PFI, and EnI between both groups (p ≤ 0.041). Conclusion: The position change of the pupil is minimal relative to age; it is preferred to establish the reference plane to describe periocular changes. The endocanthion tends to move temporally and inferiorly, while the exocanthion tends to shift nasally and inferiorly with age.

Background: To explore the research trends for uveal melanoma (UM) with bibliometric methods using Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) and PubMed (PM).Methods: To find UM-related studies, “uveal melanoma” was used as search term in the WoSCC and PM for the period time from 2000 to 2020. Bibliographic coupling analysis was used to investigate the journals with the highest number of UM-related publications. VOSviewer (VV) was used for mapping the knowledge domain and visualizing the co-occurrence of terms, authors, organizations, countries, co-citation literature, and keywords. The knowledge map based on WoSCC and PM were compared.Results: In the WoSCC 3,748 articles were found, while in PM the search resulted in 3,403 articles. The number of original articles has steadily grown in general in the past two decades. The top ten authors were contributing to 23% (n= 856) of all publications, while the top 10 institutions published 41% (n= 1524) of all articles. The top 3 journals with the highest number of publications for UM-related research included Investigative ophthalmology & visual science, Ophthalmology, and British Journal of Ophthalmology. Co-occurrence analysis based on author keywords showed 6 clusters. The most frequent keywords included metastasis, prognosis, and brachytherapy. The latest research hotspots focused on BAP1, immunotherapy and GNAQ.Conclusions: Genetics and immunology are the latest research frontiers in uveal melanoma. There is a clear need for interdisciplinary, molecular and clinical research approaches to improve the fatal prognosis of uveal melanoma patients.