{"doi":"10.3390/v17091206","title":"Depletion of Caspase-12 Alleviates Retinal Degeneration in Aged BALB/c Mice Following Systemic Neonatal Infection by Murine Cytomegalovirus (MCMV)","abstract":"(1) Background: Retinal degeneration develops upon caspase-12 activation in aged BALB/c mice following systemic neonatal infection. (2) Methods: MCMV or medium was injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) into caspase-12−/− and caspase-12+/+ mice (on BALB/c background) at <3 days after birth. At 8 and 12 months post infection (p.i.), eyes were analyzed by SD-OCT before eyes and extraocular tissues were collected and analyzed by plaque assay, H&E staining, TUNEL assay, Western blot and real-time RT-PCR. (3) Results: Virus DNA, but not replicating virus, was present in eyes and extraocular tissues at 8 and 12 months p.i. Several MCMV genes were expressed in eyes of both MCMV-infected caspase-12−/− and caspase-12+/+ mice, while mean retinal thickness was significantly higher in MCMV latently infected aged caspase-12−/− mice compared to age-matched infected caspase-12+/+ mice. Although similar levels of cleaved caspase-1 were detected in eyes of both infected caspase-12−/− and control mice, significantly higher levels of activated NF-κB, cleaved caspase-8, MLKL, p-RIP3 and p53 were observed in eyes of infected caspase-12+/+ mice compared to eyes of infected caspase-12−/− mice. (4) Conclusions: Our results suggest that caspase-12 contributes to retinal degeneration during MCMV ocular latency via multiple pathways including apoptosis and necroptosis.","journal":"Viruses","year":2025,"id":574053,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9497,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":743229,"name":"Xinyan Zhang","orcid":"0000-0002-5717-2714","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":268520,"name":"Yi Liao","orcid":"0000-0002-7724-1799","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":242134,"name":"Ting Shi","orcid":"0000-0002-4101-4535","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275008,"name":"Brendan Marshall","orcid":"0000-0001-7147-0075","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":242438,"name":"Ming Zhang","orcid":"0000-0002-4012-3932","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":743230,"name":"Jinxian Xu","orcid":"0000-0001-9674-8029","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":72,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:57:36.753600Z","pmid":"41012634","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}