US researchers have described a type of neuron which guides the formation of the retina’s lattice of blood vessels which could unlock new therapeutic routes for diseases related to impaired blood flow in the eyes and brain.
Scientists have known for years that a lattice of blood vessels nourishes cells in the retina that allow people to see, but it’s been a mystery how the intricate structure is created, said the research team from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) in a UCSF news article announcing the finding. “This is the first time anyone has seen retinal neurons using direct contact with blood vessels as a way of guiding them to form these precise 3-D lattices,” said Dr Xin Duan, an associate professor of ophthalmology and senior author of the study. “This brings us closer to the possibility of repairing them when they’re damaged or rerouting them when they weren’t built right in the first place.”
The UCSF team, led by Dr Kenichi Toma, labelled mouse retinal neurons with a protein that glows green under UV light to observe the formation of the 3D lattice of blood vessels. As a result, they identified a subset of ‘perivascular neurons’, which produce a protein, PIEZO2, that enables them to detect contact with other cells. These perivascular neurons then surround and chaperone growing blood vessels as they form the lattice, said the team. Mouse perivascular neurons which were unable to produce PIEZO2 could not maintain contact with blood vessels, which then grew in a tangle, disrupting blood flow and leaving the mice more susceptible to stroke-like injuries, they said.
