Dendric cells may be key to vision loss with demyelinating diseases

A research team from UHealth’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine has identified some of the mechanisms behind progressive vision loss associated with glaucoma and demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis, according to an institute press release.

The team discovered fundamental changes to dendritic cells of neurons in the retina that correlated with loss of vision in experimental disease models, the release said.

The process of protein deimination proves to be central to both vision loss and its potential treatment. Dendrites with lower levels of protein deimination tend to be stunted, which impairs their connectivity and contributes to progressive vision loss in demyelinating diseases, it said.

The team, led by Di Ding, PhD, a postdoctoral associate, and Mabel EngriquezAlgeciras, a graduate student, reported their findings in the Jan. 2 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, according to the release.

“Our discovery of local dendritic protein synthesis regulated by deimination opens up a potential new avenue for intervention strategies for development of new treatment modalities for neuropathies,” the authors said in the release.