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RPE barrier breakdown in diabetic retinopathy: seeing is believing

  • Published:
Journal of Ocular Biology, Diseases, and Informatics

Abstract

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a major complication of diabetes and a leading cause of blindness in working-age Americans. DR is traditionally regarded as a disorder of blood–retina barriers, and the leakage of blood content is a major pathological characteristic of the disease. While the breakdown of the endothelial barrier in DR has been investigated extensively, the vascular leakage through the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) barrier in the disease has not been widely acknowledged. As the blood content leaked through the RPE barrier causes excessive water influx to the retina, the breakdown of the RPE barrier is likely to play a causative role in the development of some forms of diabetic macular edema, a major cause of vision loss in DR. In this article, we will discuss the clinical evidences of the diabetes-induced RPE barrier breakdown, the alteration of the RPE in diabetes, the molecular and cellular mechanism of RPE barrier breakdown, and the research tools for the analysis of RPE barrier leakage. Finally, we will discuss the methodology and potential applications of our recently developed fluorescent microscopic imaging for the diabetes- or ischemia-induced RPE barrier breakdown in rodents.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Gennadiy Moiseyev for the critical reading of this manuscript. Our research is supported by NIH grants R01EY20900, P20RR17703, P20RR024215, and P30EY21725, American Diabetes Association grant 1-10-BS-94, Beckman Initiative for Macular Research Grant 1003, and Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology contract HR09-058.

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  1. Department of Medicine Endocrinology, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, 73104, USA

    Hui-Zhuo Xu, Zhiming Song, Shuhua Fu, Meili Zhu & Yun-Zheng Le

  2. Department of Cell Biology, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, 73104, USA

    Yun-Zheng Le

  3. Harold Hamm Diabetes Center, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 941 S. L. Young Blvd., BSEB 302G, Oklahoma City, OK, 73104, USA

    Hui-Zhuo Xu, Zhiming Song, Shuhua Fu, Meili Zhu & Yun-Zheng Le

  4. Department of Ophthalmology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, 410008, China

    Hui-Zhuo Xu

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Xu, HZ., Song, Z., Fu, S. et al. RPE barrier breakdown in diabetic retinopathy: seeing is believing. j ocul biol dis inform 4, 83–92 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12177-011-9068-4

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