Purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate the metabolic profiles of intact rabbit corneas and lenses exposed to UVA and UVB radiation by using high-resolution (HR) magic angle spinning (MAS) (1)H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and pattern recognition methods.
Methods: Adult albino rabbits were exposed to UVA (366 nm, 0.589 J/cm(2)) or UVB (312 nm, 1.667 J/cm(2)) radiation for 8 min, once a day for 5 days. Three days after the last irradiation day, samples of corneas and lenses were dissected. HR-MAS (1)H NMR spectroscopy combined with pattern recognition methods (principal component analysis and soft independent modelling of class analogy) and one-way ANOVA were applied to obtain metabolic information from intact corneal and lens tissue.
Results: UVB irradiation caused statistically significant metabolic changes in the rabbit corneas. A decrease in metabolites as ascorbate (84%), myo-inositol (59%), hypotaurine (91%) and choline (76%) was observed. Exposure to UVA radiation caused no significant metabolic alteration in this tissue. The metabolic profile of the rabbit lenses showed no detectable changes after UVA or UVB exposure.
Conclusions: The combination of HR-MAS (1)H NMR spectroscopy and multivariate methods proved effective to analyse intact corneal and lens tissue after exposure to UV radiation of different wavelengths. By avoiding extraction methods and obtaining complete metabolic profiles from one sample, HR-MAS (1)H NMR spectroscopy provided important information about metabolic alteration occurring in rabbit corneal and lens tissue after UV exposure.