Omics Technologies and Neovascular Ocular Disorders

Neovascular ocular disorders such as diabetic retinopathy and neovascular age-related macular degeneration (neovas-cular AMD) are an important cause of blindness in the world [1]. In these disorders, neoangiogenesis plays an important role [2], while various environmental and genetics factors are involved in their pathogenesis [2]. In the last decade of research, the importance of gene-environmental interactions and epigenetic mechanisms has been increasingly emphasized. Inflammation has an important role in the development of proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) as described in the paper by M. Urbančič et al., 2013, " A flow cytometric analysis of vitreous inflammatory cells in patients with prolif-erative diabetic retinopathy. " Histological and flow cytometric analyses have recently demonstrated the importance of histi-ocytes/macrophages and T lymphocytes in the development and activation of this disease, but no prediction on the visual prognosis was made. Moreover, higher CD4/CD8 ratio in the vitreous of patients with PDR compared to that in their blood was consistent with local inflammatory response in the disease. Characterization of the cell surface marker phenotype of ex vivo cultured cells growing out of human fibrovascular epiretinal membranes (fvERMs) from PDR can give insight into their function in immunity, angiogenesis, and retinal detachment, as described in the paper by Z. Veréb et al., 2013, " Functional and molecular characterization of ex vivo cultured epiretinal membrane cells from human proliferative diabetic retinopathy. " Several surface markers such as hematopoietic (CD34, CD47) and mesenchymal stem cell markers (CD73, CD90/Thy-1, and PDGFR í µí»½) have recently been reported in fvERMs from patients with PDR. Additionally, secretion of different angiogenesis-related factors (DPPIV/CD26, EG-VEGF/PK1, ET-1, IGFBP-2 and 3, IL-8/CXCL8, MCP-1/CCL2, MMP-9, PTX3/TSG-14, serpin E1/PAI-1, serpin F1/PEDF, TIMP-1, and TSP-1) was demonstrated in cells growing out of the fvERMs. The importance of different genes in the pathogenesis of PDR has been reviewed by D. Petrovič, 2013, in the paper " Candidate genes for proliferative diabetic retinopathy. " Several pathogenetic mechanisms have been implicated in the development of PDR such as alteration in retinal blood flow, hemostatic abnormalities, metabolic changes, increased oxidative stress, increased polyol and hexosamine pathway flux, activation of protein kinase C isoforms, and increased advanced glycation end-product formation, growth factors, and so forth (D. Petrovič, 2013, " Candidate genes for prolifera-tive diabetic retinopathy " [1]). One of the regulatory genes that has been implicated in the development of diabetic retinopa-thy is osteoprotegerin acting as an important regulatory molecule in the vasculature, as …