Abstract
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most important cause of blindness and visual impairment among the elderly. Nuclear receptors represent one of the largest families of transcription factors, with 48 present in the human genome. They are critical regulators and modulators of developmental and physiological processes and are both targets of drugs and chemicals of environmental significance. Many of the cellular processes regulated by nuclear receptors are disrupted in AMD. With this in mind, we recently created a nuclear receptor atlas of retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells, cells affected in AMD, highlighting the expression of all the nuclear receptors. The results of which provided scaffold to study individual receptors in aging and disease. This study led to several candidate receptors that have become the focus of detailed studies regarding their mechanistic role in the eye. One example of a nuclear receptor potentially relevant to AMD pathobiology is presented.
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Abbreviations
- AMD:
-
Age-related macular degeneration
- RPE:
-
Retinal pigment epithelium
- AhR:
-
Aryl hydrocarbon receptor
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Acknowledgments
Sincere thanks to the North Carolina Eye Bank, the Alabama Eye Bank, the eye donors and their families for their generosity. The author also thanks the following collaborators for their significant contributions to the studies briefly summarized herein: Donald McDonnell, Glenn Jaffe, Michael Boulton, Russell Thomas and Mary Dwyer. This work was supported in part by the US National Eye Institute grants EY02868, P30 EY005722, the Research to Prevent Blindness, Inc. (RPB) Core grants to the Duke Eye Center, the American Health Assistance Research Foundation-Macular Degeneration, the RPB special Scholars Award, and the Alcon Young Investigator Award.
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Malek, G. (2014). Nuclear Receptors as Potential Therapeutic Targets for Age-Related Macular Degeneration. In: Ash, J., Grimm, C., Hollyfield, J., Anderson, R., LaVail, M., Bowes Rickman, C. (eds) Retinal Degenerative Diseases. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 801. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3209-8_40
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3209-8_40
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