老年性核性白内障与晶状体老化关系密切，确切发病机制不明。随年龄增长，哺乳动物晶状体发生两种典型改变：一是上皮细胞不断增殖、分化，形成纤维细胞逐层包绕在晶状体外部，使晶状体质量和体积不断增长，bFGF是维持这一生理生长的关键因子；二是晶状体蛋白逐渐出现变性及翻译后修饰，引起晶状体硬度增加、透明性下降。课题组前期应用bFGF进行大鼠晶状体离体培养和在体前房内给药，模拟促晶状体生长环境，发现晶状体出现不同程度核性混浊，部分晶状体蛋白表达水平发生改变，因此，拟在此基础上探索大鼠核性白内障的建模方法，借助大鼠晶状体囊膜片技术，双向电泳联合质谱分析，免疫荧光等方法，由细胞和蛋白水平阐明晶状体老化和白内障发生的潜在机制。本项目的实施将为核性白内障的发病机制开辟新的研究思路，以期为药物治疗提供新的靶点。

Age-related nuclear cataract is closely related to lens aging, but its pathogenesis is yet unclear. With aging, one typical change in lens is its constant epithelial proliferation and differentiation. Compelling evidences have shown that FGF is the only factor that can induce the process of cell differentiation, which plays a key role in keeping lens growing.Crystallin degeneration and posttranslational modification (PTM) is another change in aging lenses; this could be responsible for opacities. Studies in our group have shown that variable nuclear opacities appeared in rat lens with addition of bFGF both in vitro and in vivo. Besides, there were also some crystallin modifications with the same characteristic as age-related nuclear cataract. Therefore, with some basic methods, such as rats lens epithelial explants, 2D-electrophoresis and mass spectrum, immunofluorescence and etc, The aim of this study is to to establish a new nuclear cataract model in rats using bFGF that mimic age-related nuclear cataract and to investigate its mechanism at molecular and cellular levels. This new field of research will help to elucidate mechanism of age-related cataract and may provide a target of phar drugs..Key words: age-related nuclear cataract, animal model, basic fibroblast growth factor, crystalline degeneration.