The study aim to test correlation between the presence of the mitochondrial DNA in vitreous fluid and blood in patients that are admitted to UTMB's Eye clinic. The goal of the study is to analyze 4 groups of 30 samples of each major ocular disease and injury: age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy and ocular trauma. Up to 300 subjects may be consented to this study in order to meet recruitment goals. In this study we will use only otherwise discarded eye's vitreous together with a blood sample that is collected during surgery. Patients with ophthalmic surgery scheduled that may result in discarded vitreal fluid will be identified from the clinic schedule or by physician in the emergency room. The possibility of vitreous collection in a surgery may be uncertain. If a subject does not have discarded vitreous from a given surgery they will be screen failed prior to blood draw or data collection from electronic medical record from that moment forward. Subjects will be approached when appropriate for interest in participation in the study by their clinical faculty surgeon. An informed consent briefing will be provided by the clinical research coordinator with an opportunity to ask questions of both the coordinator, the clinical faculty surgeon and the principle investigator. Copies of the consent will be provided for the patient to take home. Additional opportunity for questions the morning of surgery will be provided. Consent signature will be obtained prior to any medication administration the upon admission for surgery. Samples if available will be collected during the eye surgery. Up to 1ml of vitreous fluid and up to 10 ml of blood will be collected from each patient. Samples will be stored at room temperature and transferred directly to Dr. Szczesny's laboratory. Vitreous fluid will be frozen for further analysis and blood plasma will be processed using histopaque and centrifugation prior freezing. Two types of analysis will be conducted with collected biospecimens.1) Total DNA will be isolated, follow by analysis with real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RTq-PCR) using set of primers to identify the presence of the mitochondrial DNA and nuclear DNA as a control. 2) Extracellular vesicles will be isolated using ultracentrifugation or commercially available kit followed by analysis of the mitochondrial and nuclear DNA and/or plasma membrane markers using RTq-PCR and/or Western blot. Electronic medical records will be accessed to collect demographics and ophthalmologic diagnostic information and information on other comorbidity diagnoses.
These data points will include age in years, gender, race, ethnicity, presence of age related macular degeneration(AMD) (y/n), type and stage of AMD, use of AREDs vitamins, treatments of AMD, Glaucoma(y/n), type and stage of glaucoma, diabetes, blood glucose, diabetic retinopathy (y/n), type and stage of diabetic retinopathy, treatments of diabetic retinopathy and amount of time prior to this planned surgery, hypertension type and stage, renal disease type and stage, smoking history, cancer, cancer type, treatment or surgery, viral diagnoses (HIV, CMV, HCV), blunt eye trauma history, cataract history, lens removal surgery, cause of vitrectomy, concomitant medications and procedures, eye exam observations relevant to inflammatory processes, Optical coherence tomography data. IOP, visual field \[VF\] data, visual acuity, gonioscopic findings,.
