[Ocular changes associated with connective tissue disorders: role of the elastic and collagen components]

Every day, the emerging fields of genomics and proteomics provide new information about both normal and pathological processes, among which, the extracellular matrix appears to play a significant role. Over the past decade, the classic fibrillar components of the matrix, collagen and elastin, have been the subject of extensive research leading to a wealth of information which is far form being fully interpreted. Although the basic composition and structure of the matrix components has been well established, today more than twenty five different varieties of collagen have been described, and elastic fibers are currently described as polymeric complexes, composed of at least 19 different proteins in their microfibrillar and amorphic portions. Mutations in three of the genes coding for some of the most abundant proteins in the elastic fibers give rise to a wide range of elastic tissue phenotypes, from skeletal or dermal anomalies to vascular or ocular defects. In this review, our aim was to gain insight into the fibrillar component of the extracellular matrix in an attempt to improve our understanding of certain ocular disorders.