Abstract
Presentation Description :
To meet the usually high metabolic demand, retinas adapt to form a unique inter-dependent metabolic network among photoreceptors, Muller glial cells and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells. Photoreceptors have an active aerobic glycolysis, referred as Warburg effect, to generate lactate which shuttles to Muller glial cell or exports to RPE cells. Muller glial cells utilize lactate, pyruvate and aspartate to synthesize glutamine that is transported to fuel photoreceptor mitochondria. RPE cells prefer to utilize proline as a nutrient for mitochondrial TCA cycle and reverse TCA cycle namely reductive carboxylation. The intermediates generated by RPE mitochondria can flow out to retina to nourish photoreceptors and Muller glial cells.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.