An Assay to Detect Protection of the Retinal Vasculature from Diabetes-Related Death in Mice

Our goal is to comprehend the reason behind the gradual onset of diabetic retinopathy, which occurs decades after the onset of diabetes. We're investigating the pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy in two phases, loss of protection and damage accumulation. Our goal is to investigating the protection of retinal vessels against diabetes-induced insults through a protection assay.

Our protection assay unveils the dual phases of protection loss, and accumulation of damage related to diabetic retinopathy. And so this innovative approach provide a valuable tool for understanding diabetic retinopathy pathogenesis. And the potential application could be extended beyond DR, it could apply to a broader physiological and pathological context.

While existing literature predominantly focuses on the pathological alterations in diabetic retinopathy, there remains a notable gap in our knowledge concerning protective factors. This protection assay plays a crucial role in bridging the lacking of, and helps us understand the role of protective factors involved in the retinal vasculature resilience to damage induced by diabetes. This novel protection assay enhances our understanding of diabetic retinopathy progression, providing a targeted tool to investigate the delay between diabetes onset and DR manifestation in mice.

It advances our research by dissecting the interplay between protection and damage, offering potential for targeted therapeutics and broader applications. Our future research will concentrate on delineating the specific cell types, endothelial cells, parasites, and neuronal cells in the mouse retina, and the molecular mechanisms underlying this protection. Additionally, we aim to identify the potential genes behind this protective mechanism.