Cloned Robo4 protein successful in curing blindness- Study

In a major breakthrough in the study of curing Age-related Macular Degeneration(AMD) and Diabetic Retinopathy, scientists have successfully used cloned- “Robo4” to reverse the two most common causes of blindness.

The experiments were conducted on mice which were inflicted with both Macular Degeneration and Diabetic Retinopathy. It was found that the use of the protein prevents and even reverses the disease. The protein functions by inhibiting abnormal blood vessel growth and stabilizing blood vessels to prevent leakage.

"This discovery has significant implications for developing drugs that treat macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy," said Dr Kang Zhang, coauthor of the study.

According to Dr. Dean Li, a professor of medicine at the Salt Lake City school and the senior study author, degenerative blindness is caused by abnormal blood vessel growth on the retina of the eye. They are either too many in number or too leaky to function well.

"Robo4 tells the vessels not to grow, to stabilize, and not to explore. The blood vessels have an instruction system that tells them to do the opposite, to stabilize. We found a natural pathway - the Robo4 pathway, which counterattacks this by stabilizing blood vessels."

Robo4 stopped the leakage from the blood vessels and the generation of new blood vessels by inhibiting the chemical, called Vasculardefine Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) which gives the starting signal for the blood vessel formation.

Dr. Randall Olson, director of the John A. Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah has called these findings to be historic.

"This is a major breakthrough in an area where the advances have been minimal," Olsen said. "We are excited about taking this opening and moving the frontier forward with real hope for patients who have but few, often disappointing, options."

This research is different from the earlier researches as it concentrates on stabilizing the already grown, abnormal blood vessel instead of finding and targeting the substances in the body that cause the erratic blood vessel growth in the first place.

According to Li, there are many, many other factors in the body that tell the blood vessels to explore, regenerate, and destabilize. Thus, it is preferable to concentrate on managing the condition than stopping it from the grass root level.

The study has been published in Nature Medicine.