Team member:
Associate professor: Qian Chen
Graduate Student: Sihao Ye, Nan Jiang
Research focus:
Diabetic retinopathy is a microvascular complication of diabetes, which is a leading cause of blindness in the developed countries and also a major cause of blindness in China. The pathology of DR is characterized by pericytes loss, endothelial cell death, formation of acellular capillaries, thickening of the basement membrane, formation of microaneurysms, and later, retinal neovascularization. Nearly all patients with type 1 diabetes will develop some manifestation of DR, 50%~80% patients with type 2 diabetes will have DR with 20 to 25 year in the progress of diabetes. Consider the large population of diabetes that will eventually develop DR with different extent, DR represents a major threat to our global population and a costly burden to our health care system.
Our research is focused on pathological angiogenesis in diabetic retinopathy. We are investigating what causes the pathological new vessels to grow and how to prevent or treat these vessels in DR. Specifically, we are studying the roles of Wnt/β-catenin signaling, very low-density lipoprotein receptor (VLDLR) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARα) in retinal neovascularization in DR. Using transgenic mouse models and diabetic animal models, we have made several significant findings and published our manuscripts in well-known ophthalmic journals.
Publications:
1. Chen Q, Qiu FF, Zhou KL, Matlock G, Takahashi Y, Yang HF, Moran E, Ma JX. Pathological role of miR-21 in diabetic retinopathy through down-regulation of PPARα. DIABETES. 2017;66:1671–1682.
2. Chen Q, Ma JX. Canonical Wnt signaling in diabetic retinopathy. VISION RES. 2017;139:47-58.
3. Chen Q, Takahashi Y, Oka K, Ma JX. Functional differences of VLDLR splice variants in regulating Wnt signaling. Mol Cell Biol 2016;36:2645–2654.
4. Takahashi Y*, Chen Q*, Rajala R, Ma JX, MicroRNA-184 modulates canonical Wnt signaling through the regulation of frizzled-7 expression in the retina with ischemia-induced neovascularization. FEBS Lett, 2015;589(10):1143-9. (* equal contribution)
5. Murray AR*, Chen Q*, Takahashi Y, Zhou KK, Park K, Ma JX. MiRNA-200b down-regulates Oxidation Resistance 1 (Oxr1) expression in the retina of type 1 diabetes model. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci., 2013;54(3):1689-97. (* equal contribution)
6. Qiu FF, Matlock GH, Chen Q, Zhou KL, Du YH, Wang X and Ma JX. Therapeutic effects of PPARα agonist on experimental neovascular age-related macular degeneration. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci., 2017 Oct 1;58(12):5065-5075.
7. Fu H, Vadalia N, Xue ER, Johnson C, Wang L, Yang WY, Sanchez C, Nelson J, Chen Q, Choi ET, Ma JX, Yu J, Wang H, Yang XF. Thrombus leukocytes exhibit more endothelial cell-specific angiogenic markers than peripheral blood leukocytes do in acute coronary syndrome patients, suggesting a possibility of trans-differentiation: a comprehensive database mining study. J Hematol Onco., 2017 Mar 23;10(1):74.
8. Moran E, Ding LX, Wang ZX, Cheng R, Chen Q, Moore R, Takahashi Y and Ma JX. Protective and Antioxidant Effects of PPAR-α in the Ischemic Retina. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci., 2014 May 13;55(7):4568-76.
9. Hu Y, Chen Y, Ding LX, He XM, Takahashi Y, Gao Y, Shen W, Cheng R, Chen Q, Qi XP, Boulton M, and Ma JX. Pathogenic role of diabetes-induced PPAR-α down-regulation in microvascular dysfunction. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 2013.110 (38):15401-15406.
