Eyeballing Correct Sizes

How do organs grow repeatedly to the same size? Developmental biologists have been fascinated by this question for many years, particularly when it comes to the eye. That’s because the size of an eye strongly links with performance. Any changes in size can cause long- or near-sightedness. So what controls eye size? Researchers have revealed that a protein called BMP2 is part of a network of stop signals for eye growth. Pictured are whole (top row) and sections (bottom) of a mouse eyeball with normal BMP2 levels (middle column), with reduced levels (left) and with increased levels (right). They show a clear difference in size, where not enough BMP2 means the eyeball has overgrown and vice versa. High myopia is an inherited cause of near-sightedness because the eyes are larger than they should be. This discovery could be the first step towards developing new ways to treat myopia and similar conditions in the future.

Written by Sophie Arthur

Sophie Arthur

former Science Communications Officer MRC LMS

Formerly a stem cell biologist, Sophie has since moved into science communication working at the MRC LMS. She also writes an award winning science and education blog Soph talks science.

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• Image from work by Shuyi Mai and colleagues
• Department of Biomedical Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Development, July 2022