Cell-culture helps study AMD

Research into age-related macular degeneration (AMD) published in Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, confirmed retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells in early AMD are functional, and also that conditions of the so-called Bruch’s mbrane – on which RPE cells grow in the eye – are likely essential for drusen formation.{{quote-A:R-W:450-Q: The readily reproducible and valid cell culture model is an important step in determining what molecules in drusen, and what changes in RPE cells living over drusen, promote advancent to late stages of AMD. }}Drusen has been found to be a major risk factor for geographic atrophy and neovascularisation, which both characterise late forms of AMD and are linked with irreversible blindness.The teams were able to confirm their hypothesis by roving (RPE) cells directly from a pig’s eye.They then donstrated it was possible to lay down all the major constituents of drusen – lipids, proteins and other trace elents, as well as hydroxyapatite – when the cells are grown on specific surfaces.According to the researchers, the readily reproducible and valid cell culture model is an important step in determining what molecules in drusen, and what changes in RPE cells living over drusen, promote advancent to late stages of AMD.{{image2-a:l-w:400}}AMD affects more than one million Australians aged over 50 and is twice as prevalent as Alzheimer’s disease.A common treatment procedure for neovascularisation is with a monthly injection using anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) drugs in the eye, which are also costly and burdensome for patients.The discovery provides a good view of how drusen is formed and could allow scientists to develop ways to prevent advanced complications of AMD.