Transplantation study against ischemic retinal disease

糖尿病视网膜病变（diabetic retinopathy，PDR）是一种常见的缺血性视网膜疾病，年龄相关性黄斑变性（age-related macular degeneration，AMD）也被怀疑是以脉络膜低灌注区为背景的。这些缺血性视网膜疾病是世界范围内致盲的主要原因。我们检测了AMD、增生性玻璃体视网膜病变（PVR）和PDR患者增生膜中几种细胞因子基因的表达。基因表达的相互比较表明，一些细胞因子，如血管内皮生长因子（VEGF）和碱性成纤维细胞生长因子在这些病变表现出高表达。脑源性神经生长因子（BDNF）也显示在这些膜。另一方面，据报道，BDNF对实验诱导的视网膜缺血状况显示出神经保护作用。这种保护作用在视网膜的内部区域中是突出的，尤其是神经节细胞和无长突细胞。我们在大鼠虹膜色素上皮细胞中进行了BDNF基因的永久转染。将转染的细胞用于大鼠移植和缺血研究。尽管实验数量尚不足以进行统计学分析，但就我们所观察到的情况来看，移植大鼠没有出现排斥反应，也没有对缺血实验产生保护作用。从这些实验中，我们的虹膜色素上皮细胞，这是很容易从个人获得的方法，可能有潜力的，不仅对缺血性视网膜疾病的移植研究，但对其他视网膜疾病。

Diabetic retinopathy (PDR) is one of the famous ischemic retinal disease and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is also suspected to have hypoperfusion area of the choroid at the background condition. These ischemic retinal disease show main cause of blindness in the world. We have examined several cytokine gene expression in the proliferative membranes in patients with AMD, proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR), and PDR. Comparison of the gene expression with each other demonstrated that some cytokines such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and basic fibroblast growth factor manifested high expression in these lesions. Brain-derived nerve growth factor (BDNF) also demonstrated in these membranes. On the other hand, BDNF is reported to show nerve protective effect against the experimentary induced ischemic condition of the retina. The protective effect is prominent in the inner region of the retina in the condition, especially the ganglion cells and amacrine cells. We performed permanent BDNF gene transfection in the rat iris pigment epithelial cell. The transfected cell was used for transplantation and ischemic study in the rats. As far as we examined, the transplanted rats showed not rejection sign and protective effect against ischemic experiment, although the experimental number was not enough for statistical analysis so far. From these experiment, our methods using iris pigment epithelial cells, which is easy to obtain from individuals, may have potential s not only for transplantation study against ischemic retinal disease but for other retinal diseases.