Ageing of glutathione reductase in the lens

The distribution of glutathione reductase activity in concentric layers from the lens has been determined as a function of age for 16 species. Primate lenses have almost ten times the level of glutathione reductase found in other species. Comparison with the activity of hexokinase revealed that this is not due to a higher overall rate of metabolism in these lenses. By contrast, the higher activity found in bird and fish lenses reflects a higher metabolic activity in these tissues. In all species, a gradient of activity was observed with the highest specific activity in the outermost cortical fibres, decreasing to virtually no activity in the inner parts of the tissue. No alterations were found in this gradient with increasing age, other than an increase in the amount of nuclear tissue essentially devoid of activity. The maximum activity in the outer cortical fibres was the same, regardless of the age of the lens. The time taken, in different species, for the specific activity to decrease by half, was estimated from the rate of protein accumulation. This time was found to vary from a few days to several years, indicating that the decrease in activity is not due to ageing but rather, it is related to the maturation of fibre cells. These observations are discussed in terms of current concepts of lens ageing and cataract formation.