Ophthalmology Commons^™

Metabolic Deregulation Of The Blood-Outer Retinal Barrier In Retinitis Pigmentosa, Wei Wang, Ashwini Kini, Yekai Wang, Tingting Liu, Yao Chen, Eric Vukmanic, Douglas Emery, Yongqing Liu, Xiaoqin Lu, Lei Jin, San Joon Lee, Patrick Scott, Xiao Liu, Kevin Dean, Qingxian Lu, Enzo Fortuny, Robert James, Henry J. Kaplan, Jianhai Du, Douglas C. Dean

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) initiates with diminished rod photoreceptor function, causing peripheral and nighttime vision loss. However, subsequent loss of cone function and high-resolution daylight and color vision is most debilitating. Visual pigment-rich photoreceptor outer segments (OS) undergo phagocytosis by the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), and the RPE also acts as a blood-outer retinal barrier transporting nutrients, including glucose, to photoreceptors. We provide evidence that contact between externalized phosphatidylserine (PS) on OS tips and apical RPE receptors activates Akt, linking phagocytosis with glucose transport to photoreceptors for new OS synthesis. As abundant mutant rod OS tips shorten in RP, Akt activation …