Indian Journal of Ophthalmology

LETTER TO EDITOR
Year
: 2003  |  Volume : 51  |  Issue : 4  |  Page : 365--366

Selenite cataract and its attenua-tion by vitamin-E in wistar rats


B Brijit Sneha, P Geraldine, Philip A Thomas 
 

Correspondence Address:
B Brijit Sneha





How to cite this article:
Sneha B B, Geraldine P, Thomas PA. Selenite cataract and its attenua-tion by vitamin-E in wistar rats.Indian J Ophthalmol 2003;51:365-366


How to cite this URL:
Sneha B B, Geraldine P, Thomas PA. Selenite cataract and its attenua-tion by vitamin-E in wistar rats. Indian J Ophthalmol [serial online] 2003 [cited 2024 Mar 29 ];51:365-366
Available from: https://journals.lww.com/ijo/pages/default.aspx/text.asp?2003/51/4/365/14638


Full Text

Dear Editor,

We congratulate Mathew et al. [1] for their interesting study on attenuation of selenite cataractogenesis by vitamin E in Wistar rats, but would like to raise the following questions regarding the methodology:

1. The authors have not explained how they determined that a dose of 32 mg per 20 gram rat pup would induce cataractogenesis. Shearer et al[2] reported that the LD50 of sodium selenite (by the intravenous route) for rats is 3mg/kg, and the cataractogenic dose is 2.4 mg/kg, doses which are considerably less than that used by Mathew et al. [1]

2. In Materials and Methods (first paragraph, line 4), it is stated that "Eighteen rat pups were used in the study" whereas one sentence later, we note that "Twelve rat pups were used for this study, and 12 rat pups served as controls"; these are contradictory statements. Why were 10 day-old and 12 day -old rat pups used as 2 separate groups? Are there any data to indicate that there are significant differences in the process of selenite cataractogenesis in rat pups exhibiting such a small difference in age?

3. The designation of Groups in Table 1 (Experimental Design) could have been more clearly stated. For example, Group I A (referring to animals receiving selenite alone, without vitamin E) is designated 'Selenite alone (test) ' and Group I B (referring to animals receiving vehicle alone, and neither selenite nor vitamin E) is designated 'Selenite alone (control)', which may confuse the reader.

4. The exact times at which lenses were removed for the various analyses are not clearly stated. SDS-PAGE was used for qualitative analysis, and not for quantitative analysis (as erroneously stated). The authors state that in preparing the samples for SDS-PAGE, each pellet was dissolved in 20 ml of SDS. If so, the material in each pellet must have been considerably diluted, necessitating the loading of a large quantum of sample, leading to problems in resolution of the bands

References

1Mathew JP, Thomas VC, Thomas I. Selenite cataract and its attenuation by vitamin E in Wistar rats. Indian J Ophthalmol 2003;51:161-70.
2Shearer TR, Ma H, Fukiage C, Azuma M. Selenite nuclear cataract: Review of the model. Mol Vis 1997;3:8.