Abstract
IRIS colour to some degree depends on the sympathetic innervation of the eye. Chance clinical observations of humans and experimental studies in animals have demonstrated consistently a gradual lessening of colour intensity in the iris after interruption of the sympathetic pathways to the eye1,2. Similarly, full iris pigmentation fails to develop when the sympathetic innervation to the eye is absent from birth3. Interest in the relationship of sympathetic innervation to iris colour has increased with reports of direct adrenergic innervation to iris stromal melanocytes4–6. For mammals this is extraordinary in that most melanocytes, for example those of the skin, have no innervation. We have investigated this relationship using tyrosinase activity as an index of melanin synthesis since melanin is the chief pigment of the iris and tyrosinase is the rate-limiting enzyme in the production of melanin7. In turn, iris tyrosinase activity was measured in normal rabbits and in rabbits in which the sympathetic pathways to the eye have been interrupted.
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LATIES, A., LERNER, A. Iris colour and relationship of tyrosinase activity to adrenergic innervation. Nature 255, 152–153 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1038/255152a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/255152a0
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