A study led by the National Eye Institute (NEI) that included five researchers from the Bazan Lab at the LSU Health New Orleans Neuroscience Center of Excellence has discovered how late-onset retinal degeneration can develop and a surprising potential therapeutic — metformin. The results are published online in Communications Biology, a Nature journal.
Late-onset retinal degeneration is an autosomal dominant disorder caused by the substitution of a different amino acid in the protein made by the CTRP5 gene. Earlier discoveries by LSU Health Neuroscience researchers on retina lipids that protect sight helped lay the groundwork for the current study. Their collaborative data suggest a mechanism for the dominant behavior of the CTRP5 gene mutation, which had been unclear.
The protein made by CTRP5 has been identified as a biomarker for obesity and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,…
