Abstract
Presentation Description :
Diseases of the aging eye such dry and wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) affect hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide and can be considered as the most prevalent neuroinflammatory diseases. Progression of AMD is influenced by persistent low- grade inflammation and a largely innate immune response. While significant effort has been invested to understand the genes that causes of AMD, variations and mutations in susceptibility genes only augment the chances of getting the disease but do not cause the disease. For example, the most highly linked mutations (such as complement factor H Y402H polymorphism) will increase chances of developing AMD by 4-fold, but will not necessarily trigger the disease. This suggests that other factors such as environment and lifestyle are key. We have recently identified a critical role for innate immune memory in AMD as a process linking environmental factors with epigenetic reprogramming of myeloid cells in the back of the eye. I will discuss how a past history of systemic infection or poor metabolic health reprograms myeloid cells to aggravate AMD and present novel potential therapeutic targets to counter these prevalent diseases of the aging eye based on these concepts.
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, WA, May 5-9, 2024.