LABORATORY OF MOLECULAR MEDIATORS IN NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASES

Research lines

Lipid mediators in retinal degenerative processes

Neurodegenerative retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and proliferative retinopathies such as diabetic retinopathy have as common factors the death of photoreceptors and the reactive response of other cell types, Müller glial cells and pigmented epithelial cells (PECs). Our laboratory investigates whether sphingolipids, bioactive molecules that regulate key cellular processes, modulate the altered functionality and activation of the inflammatory response of neuronal, glial and epithelial cells in pathological processes. We analyze the degenerative, inflammatory and fibrotic changes of cells and the molecular mechanisms involved, with the aim of generating knowledge that will contribute to identify new therapeutic targets to treat these pathologies.

Interregulation between transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) and sphingolipids in retinodegenerative pathologies

This line analyzes the inter-regulation between sphingolipids sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) and ceramide-1-phosphate (C1P) with TGF-β in the development of retinal fibrosis, characteristic of retinoproliferative diseases. These pathologies are characterized by dysregulation of the inflammatory response, proliferation, migration and de-differentiation of glial cells and RPE. Given that TGF-β is a major pro-fibrotic molecule and S1P transactivates its pathway in different tissues (Yang et al., 2018; Nicholas et al., 2017), we investigate whether TGF-β participates in the fibrotic response and whether it presents a molecular dialogue with S1P and/or C1P to induce migration, de-differentiation and inflammatory response in glial and epithelial cells.