Progress in gene therapy for glaucoma.docVIP

 PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT 44 Progress in gene therapy for glaucoma Abstract Recent studies have shown that elevation of intraocular pressure in patients with glaucoma and retinal ganglion cell damage and death may be related to some relevant gene structure and function abnormalities, and therefore, gene therapy as a new therapeutic approach has been increasingly in the medical field application, for the prevention and treatment of glaucoma, provides a broad prospect. In this paper, the ongoing gene therapy research are reviewed. Keywords: gene therapy for glaucoma Advances in gene therapy for glaucoma Abstract Previous studies in molecular genetics have indicated in glaucoma elevated intraocular pressure and damage of death of retinal ganglion cells may be related to the abnormality of related gene. So gene therapy has been gradually applied in medical domain as a kind of new treatment method, it provides extensive prospect for the prevention and cure of glaucoma. This paper reviews advances in gene therapy for glaucoma. * KEYWORDS: glaucoma; gene therapy 0 Introduction Glaucoma is a group for optic nerve damage and neuronal loss of the eye disorder characterized. Glaucoma as the world’s second-blinding eye disease, its effective prevention and treatment and prevention of blindness has increasingly become the focus of public health work. Elevation of intraocular pressure and ischemia are caused by glaucoma, retinal ganglion cells (retinal ganglion cells, RGCs) lost two stimulus factors, and high intraocular pressure will directly damage the optic nerve axons and lead to irreversible loss of RGC. Because the exact molecular mechanism of RGC death is not yet very clear, there is no effective treatment to prevent severe loss of visual function in patients with glaucoma [1]. At present the treatment of glaucoma to reduce intraocular pressure is still dominated, but the presence of drugs commonly used in the more serious compli