Frontiers in Neurology (Aug 2016)
Amyloidosis in retinal neurodegenerative diseases
Abstract
As a part of the Central Nervous System, the retina may reflect both physiological processes and abnormalities related to pathologies that affect the brain. Amyloidosis due to the accumulation of amyloid-beta was initially regarded as a specific and exclusive characteristic of neurodegenerative alterations seen in the brain of Alzheimer’s disease patients. More recently, it turned out that amyloidosis-related alterations, similar to those seen in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients, also occur in the retina. Remarkably, these alterations were identified not only in primary retinal pathologies, such as age-related macular degeneration and glaucoma, but also in the retinas of Alzheimer’s patients. In this review, we first briefly discuss the biogenesis of amyloid-beta, a peptide involved in amyloidosis. We then discuss some pathological aspects (synaptic dysfunction, mitochondrial failure, glial activation and vascular abnormalities) related to the neurotoxic effects of amyloid-beta. We finally highlight the common features shared by Alzheimer’s disease, age-related macular degeneration and glaucoma in the context of amyloid-beta amyloidosis and further discuss why the retina, due to the transparency of the eye, can be considered as a window to the brain.
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