Genome-wide association studies: getting to pathogenesis, the role of inflammation/complement in age-related macular degeneration.

ABSTRACT: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a chronic, degenerative, and significant cause of visual impairment and blindness in the elderly. Genetic and epidemiological studies have confirmed that AMD has a strong genetic component, which has encouraged the application of increasingly sophisticated genetic techniques to uncover the important underlying genetic variants. Although various genes and pathways have been implicated in the risk for AMD, complement activation has been emphasized repeatedly throughout the literature as having a major role both physiologically and genetically in susceptibility to and pathogenesis of this disease. This article explores the research efforts that brought about the discovery and characterization of the role of inflammatory and immune processes (specifica

SUBMITTER: Cooke Bailey JN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4292090 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature