Research progress of aquaporin 1 and 4 in diabetic retinopathy

Abstract

Diabetic retinopathy(DR), one of the most common retinal vascular disease, is one of the causes of blindness for people over the age of 50. In the early stage of DR, microvascular cells are damaged, expand, start to leak, form micro hemangioma, then show occlusion, and non-perfusion area come into being, eventually form new blood vessels because of ischemia and hypoxia of retina. Illness develop into proliferative diabetic retinopathy(PDR). With the aggravation of the disease, PDR can cause the formation of fibrovascular membrane, the more serious fibrillation of epiretinal membrane, resulting in traction retinal detachment(tRD). Present studies suggest that aquaporins, the essential component of new blood vessels, including aquaporin 1 and aquaporin 4, play a significant pole in the development of diabetic retinopathy, causing the destruction of blood retinal barrier, inducing retinal edema, even macular edema, and participating in the formation of retinal angiogenesis.

Keywords

• diabetic retinopathy
• AQP1
• AQP4
• AQP4