Common retinal diseases meet their match!
Neovascularization a nightmare for any opthalmologist. It is the abnormal overgrowth of capillaries in the retina which eventually leads to vision loss. It can occur due to multiple reasons like increasing age, diabetes which leads to diabetic retinopathy etc. The classical solution is to use VEGF blockers. When the blood vessels in the retina become hypoxic this leads to the stimulation of HIF-1α which leads to a boost in VEGF levels to bring more blood to areas in need. Although this is supposed to be beneficial, in the retina it leads to the covering of photoreceptors by blood vessels. VEGF blockers inhibit VEGF but since it is needed for the health of normal tissues it is not without consequences. Recent research into CITED 2 (which functions as a negative feedback regulator) shows that when negative feedback inducing fragments were introduced to a mouse eye with neovascularization it slowed the progress of the disease while still retaining normal capillary growth unlike VEGF blockers. Further research suggests that combining CITED 2 fragments with low dose VEGF blockers leads to better results than with either of the 2 separately. Although it is still under trial with only successful results in mice the research team is hopeful about it's future contributions. References:- 1.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-strategy-common-retinal-diseases.html 2.Image by Ayumi Usui-Ouchi, Friedlander laboratory at Scripps Research
