COMPARATIVE GENOMICS OF MYOCILIN PROTEIN

Abstract

Glaucoma is one of the leading diseases which causes irreversible visual impairment and blindness throughout the world. It constitutes clinically and genetically heterogenous group of optic neuropathies. Specific mutations in the myocilin gene cause primary open angle glaucoma with varying age-of-onset and degree of severity. Though the structure of the gene and protein have been elucidated still the role of  mutant  protein is not clearly understood. To study myocilin and glaucoma-associated myocilin mutants in higher animals and to understand, how these molecules may alter intraocularpressure and outflow resistance, it would be more helpful if we have  animal models which could be used in the study. For finding out suitable  animal models, sequence anlysis approach has been the first step in many diseases. Here we took a sequence analysis approach to know more about  the related orthologes of  myocilin proteins from different  species.