Implications of the hydrotropic function of intralenticular ATP in cataractogenesis and presbyopiogenesis

Abstract

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) prevents protein aggregation. The crystalline lens, although a metabolically quiescent organ, synthesizes a large amount of ATP, ca. 3 mM [1], that exceeds by an order-of-magnitude the concentration required for all the known intracellular functions of ATP, combined. This high intralenticular ATP concentration is shared by many species including humans [2,3]. The production of such an excessive amount of ATP is inconsistent with the usual conservative production of ATP assumed to be operant in nature, which brings into question why such a high concentration of ATP exists in the lens.