Possibility of apelin in ischemic retinal disease as a new target for drug development

糖尿病视网膜病变等缺血性视网膜疾病患者的病理性血管生成，由于新形成的血管相当渗漏，可引起玻璃体出血，导致视力丧失和失明。我们之前报道过，在氧诱导视网膜病变模型中，apelin表达的急剧上调导致内皮细胞增殖旺盛和病理性血管生成。在这里，我们证明了在氧诱导的视网膜病变模型中，向视网膜体内递送apelin siRNA导致病理性血管生成受到抑制。

Pathological angiogenesis in patients with ischemic retinal diseases such as diabetic retinopathy results in visual loss and blindness, because the newly formed vessels are quite leaky and can cause vitreous hemorrhage. We previously reported that a dramatic upregulation of apelin expression cause exuberant endothelial cell proliferation and pathological angiogenesis in retinas of oxygen-induced retinopathy model. Here, we demonstrate that in vivo delivery of apelin siRNA to retina resulted in suppression of pathological angiogenesis in oxygen-induced retinopathy model.