Semaphorins as guidance cues of retinal angiogenic disease

湿性老年性黄斑变性(AMD)是工业化国家最常见的成人失明原因之一。湿性AMD的特征之一是眼后极部的病理性血管生长(血管生成)，这通常与中心视力的迅速丧失有关。在过去的几年里，像信号素这样的分子被发现发挥着重要的血管调节作用，这些分子最初被认为是神经元的指导信号。然而，信号素在湿性AMD中如何发挥作用还没有被研究过。因此，本项目旨在利用功能性慢病毒方法研究视网膜信号素在调节视网膜下血管生成中的作用。该项目旨在涵盖信号素功能的基础科学以及体外和体内的功能实验以及人体样本的分析，以阐明信号素在湿性AMD病理性血管生成中的调节作用。

Wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the most common causes for blindness in adults in industrialized countries. One of the hallmarks of wet AMD is pathologic blood vessel growth (angiogenesis) at the posterior pole of the eye which is often associated with rapid loss of central visual acuity. Over the last years, molecules like the semaphorins that were originally identified as neuronal guidance cues, have been found to play important angiomodulatory roles. How semaphorins function in the context of wet AMD, however, has not been investigated. This project thus aims to investigate the role of retinal semaphorins in modulating subretinal angiogenesis using a functional lentiviral approach. The project aims to cover aspects of basic science of semaphorin function as well as functional in vitro and in vivo experiments and analysis of human samples in order to elucidate the role of semaphorins in modulating pathologic angiogenesis in wet AMD.