Early-life peripheral infections reprogram retinal microglia and aggravate neovascular age-related macular degeneration in later life.

ABSTRACT: Pathological neovascularization in age-related macular degeneration (nvAMD) drives the principal cause of blindness in the elderly. While there is a robust genetic association between genes of innate immunity and AMD, genome-to-phenome relationships are low, suggesting a critical contribution of environmental triggers of disease. Possible insight comes from the observation that a past history of infection with pathogens such as Chlamydia pneumoniae, or other systemic inflammation, can predispose to nvAMD in later life. Using a mouse model of nvAMD with prior C. pneumoniae infection, endotoxin exposure, and genetic ablation of distinct immune cell populations, we demonstrated that peripheral infections elicited epigenetic reprogramming that led to a persistent memory state in retinal CX3CR1

SUBMITTER: Hata M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9927938 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature