Journal
JOVE-JOURNAL OF VISUALIZED EXPERIMENTS
Volume -, Issue 111, Pages -Publisher
JOURNAL OF VISUALIZED EXPERIMENTS
DOI: 10.3791/53986
Keywords
Cellular Biology; Issue 111; lens mechanics; strain; eye; aging; lens nucleus; morphometrics; compression; biomechanics
Categories
Funding
- National Eye Institute [R01 EY017724]
- National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases [K99 AR066534]
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The eye lens is a transparent organ that refracts and focuses light to form a clear image on the retina. In humans, ciliary muscles contract to deform the lens, leading to an increase in the lens' optical power to focus on nearby objects, a process known as accommodation. Age-related changes in lens stiffness have been linked to presbyopia, a reduction in the lens' ability to accommodate, and, by extension, the need for reading glasses. Even though mouse lenses do not accommodate or develop presbyopia, mouse models can provide an invaluable genetic tool for understanding lens pathologies, and the accelerated aging observed in mice enables the study of age-related changes in the lens. This protocol demonstrates a simple, precise, and cost-effective method for determining mouse lens stiffness, using glass coverslips to apply sequentially increasing compressive loads onto the lens. Representative data confirm that mouse lenses become stiffer with age, like human lenses. This method is highly reproducible and can potentially be scaled up to mechanically test lenses from larger animals.
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