Grant: CIHR/Regional Partnership Program/Operating Grants

Central vision loss is a devastating problem that greatly impacts upon childhood development, the quality of life and the maintenance of functional autonomy. Retinopathy of prematurity, proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) and wet age- related macular degeneration (wet AMD) are leading causes of blindness in western populations. These diseases are classified as neovascular meaning they involve the overgrowth of blood vessels in the retinal tissues of the eye. New improved therapies are needed to prevent and treat these retinal diseases. We discovered Tubedown, a factor present in healthy retinal blood vessels but reduced during overgrowth of retinal blood vessels. Using laboratory mice, we have found that loss of Tubedown from retinal blood vessels is an important predisposing factor for the progression of experimental retinopathy which mimics several of the hallmarks of human retinopathy. We will use our existing mouse model to determine the impact of Tubedown loss on visual function (ability of the mice to see). We will study the biological mechanism by which Tubedown protein acts to stabilize retinal blood vessels to understand how best to manipulate Tubedown function for therapeutic purposes for treating neovascular retinopathies. Restoration of Tubedown to retinal blood vessels may provide a new and specific therapeutic approach for preventing and treating neovascular retinal diseases in humans.