Ophthalmology Commons^™

Inflammation In The Pathogenesis Of Diabetic Retinopathy, Haoshen Shi

Wayne State University Dissertations

The general purpose of these studies is to investigate inflammation in diabetic retinopathy in an effort to identify key intervention points to develop as treatments. Firstly, we showed that the neuropeptide VIP displayed protective immunoregulatory effects on retinal endothelial cells cultured under high glucose conditions. This effect was carried out, in part through the VPAC2 receptor.

Next, we studied the β-adrenergic receptor agonist, Compound 49b, and its effect on the pro-resolving RvD1 pathway. Compound 49b was previously shown to suppress both inflammatory and apoptotic responses in DR. We demonstrated that Compound 49b rescued the high glucose-induced decrese in RvD1 and …

Improving Aav Transduction Efficiency In Retinal Bipolar Cells For Optogenetic Vision Restoration, Shengjie Cui

Wayne State University Dissertations

Recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors are the most promising vehicles for therapeutic gene delivery to the retina. We are developing AAV-mediated expression of optogenetic tools in surviving inner retinal neurons as a potential strategy to restoring vision after the death of photoreceptor cells in retinal degeneration. Targeting optogeneitc tools, such as channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2), to retinal bipolar cells (RBCs) is particularly attractive. In particular, our lab has recently developed an optimized mGluR6 promoter-based virus vector that can mainly target ChR2 to rod bipolar cells. However, AAV-mediated transduction efficiency in RBCs is relatively low. The transduction efficiency could be affected by a …