A bio-functional polymer that prevents retinal scarring through modulation of NRF2 signalling pathway.
Nat Commun, 2022/05/19;13(1):2796.
Parikh BH[1, 2], Liu Z[1, 2, 3], Blakeley P[2], Lin Q[4], Singh M[1, 5], Ong JY[1], Ho KH[1], Lai JW[6], Bogireddi H[2], Tran KC[2], Lim JYC[4, 7], Xue K[4], Al-Mubaarak A[2], Yang B[1], R S[1], Regha K[1, 2], Wong DSL[2], Tan QSW[1], Zhang Z[4], Jeyasekharan AD[8], Barathi VA[2, 3, 9], Yu W[1, 5], Cheong KH[6], Blenkinsop TA[10], Hunziker W[1, 11], Lingam G[2, 3, 12], Loh XJ[13, 14], Su X[15, 16, 17, 18]
Affiliations
PMID: 35589753DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30474-6
Impact factor: 17.694
Abstract
One common cause of vision loss after retinal detachment surgery is the formation of proliferative and contractile fibrocellular membranes. This aberrant wound healing process is mediated by epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and hyper-proliferation of retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells. Current treatment relies primarily on surgical removal of these membranes. Here, we demonstrate that a bio-functional polymer by itself is able to prevent retinal scarring in an experimental rabbit model of proliferative vitreoretinopathy. This is mediated primarily via clathrin-dependent internalisation of polymeric micelles, downstream suppression of canonical EMT transcription factors, reduction of RPE cell hyper-proliferation and migration. Nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 signalling pathway was identified in a genome-wide transcriptomic profiling as a key sensor and effector. This study highlights the potential of using synthetic bio-functional polymer to modulate RPE cellular behaviour and offers a potential therapy for retinal scarring prevention.
MeSH terms
Animals; Cell Line; Cell Movement; Cicatrix; Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition; NF-E2-Related Factor 2; Polymers; Rabbits; Retinal Pigment Epithelium
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