Buscar Close Search
Buscar Close Search
Page Menu

Punzo Lab News

  • jul 6, 2021 Retinal Vasculitis with Anti-VEGF treatment

    Retinal Vasculitis with Anti-VEGF treatment

    Michelle Cheng shows that inhibition of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in the retina can promote inflammation by increasing the expression of cell adehesion molecules that enhance extravasation of immune cells from the vasculature. In a paper published in Human Gene Therapy she shows that rAAV mediated expression of a VEGF drug causes retinal vasculitis.

  • jun 11, 2021 HK2-Mediated Aerobic Glycolysis in AMD

    HK2-Mediated Aerobic Glycolysis in AMD

    Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a multifactorial disease of unclear etiology. We previously proposed that metabolic adaptations in photoreceptors (PRs) play a role in disease progression. Here we show that the metabolic changes we induced in photoreceptors to cause AMD to not require HK2-mediated aerobic glycolysis to cause AMD-like pathologies in mouse. The data suggest that changes in the glucose lactate exchange between the retinal-pigmented epithelium and the photoreceptors are not what causes AMD in humans.
    .

  • may 21, 2020 Altered photoreceptor metabolism in mouse causes late stage age-related macular degeneration pathologies.

    Altered photoreceptor metabolism in mouse causes late stage age-related macular degeneration pathologies.

    The main cause for blindness in the elderly worldwide is age-related macular degeneration (AMD). What causes AMD remains unknown. The high metabolic demands of photoreceptors are thought to contribute to disease pathogenesis, yet whether photoreceptor metabolism differs in individuals with AMD has not been determined. In this research article Michelle Cheng shows that photoreceptor metabolism does differ between diseased and non-diseased individuals. Mimicking the metabolic profile of diseased individuals in mouse resulted in the similar advanced pathologies as those that cause blindness in humans. A disease model with photoreceptors as a contributing factor explains also why AMD affects preferentially the macula; it is the region of highest photoreceptor density. The data opens new avenues to develop treatment paradigms that target photoreceptor metabolism in AMD. Based on her findings Michelle is now developing therapy for the human disease by targeting photoreceptor metabolims.

  • may 29, 2018 Aerobic glycolysis is essential for normal rod function and control secondary cone death in retinitis pigmentosa

    Aerobic glycolysis is essential for normal rod function and control secondary cone death in retinitis pigmentosa

    Using a Hexokinase-2 conditional allele Lolita Petit shows that loss of aerobic glycolysis in rods leads to a metabolic switch in rods whereby rods start to rely on oxidative phosphorylation, by increasing the number of their mitochondria. In contrast, cones appear to compensate by increased lactate uptake that is produced by rods. However, in the absence of this mechanism cones in metabolically stressed disease condition such as retinitis pigmentosa, where rods have died, depend on aerobic glycolysis. Consequently, loss of aerobic glycolysis in cones of retinitis pigmentosa mice accelerates cone death.

  • dic 18, 2017 Caspase-7 Does not affect secondary Cone death in Retinitis Pigmantosa

    Caspase-7 Does not affect secondary Cone death in Retinitis Pigmantosa

    Aditya Venkatesh shows that loss of the cone-enriched caspase-7 does not affect secondary cone death in two retinitis pigmentosa mouse models. Since caspase-7 activation has been shown to occur with ER stress the data suggests that ER stress is not a contributing factor to cone death in retinitis pigmentosa.

  • oct 11, 2017 Dr. Punzo Recipient of Macular Degeneration BrightFocus Award

    Dr. Punzo Recipient of Macular Degeneration BrightFocus Award

    The BrightFocus Foundation awarded Dr. Claudio Punzo and his collaborator, Dr. Rahul Kanadia, a grant for his research into the cause of Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD). The award spans a time window of 2 years and is intended to test the role of photoreceptors in causing AMD. Dr. punzo has proposed that metabolic changes in photoreceptors could be the undelying cause for AMD in humans.

  • jun 27, 2017 IRRF 2016 annual report features Marina's research on Cover

    IRRF 2016 annual report features Marina's research on Cover

    The International Retinal Research Foundation (IRRF) highlights Marina's research on their 2016 Cover. The research shows that altering cell metabolism in rods and cones in a cell autonomouse manner inmproves photoreceptor survival in a model of age-related macular degeneration that lacks retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) cells due to sodium iodate administration. Interetsingly, the model shows that rod survival does not affect cone survival when the RPE is missing. The report also introduces the Punzo Lab.

  • jun 12, 2017 Rods and Cones compete for AAV access

    Rods and Cones compete for AAV access

    Lolita Petit et al., show how development of photoreceptor outer segments influence AAV infectivity of rods. The data indicates that rods and cones compete for AAV access. Furthermore, the data indicates that the presence of an outer segment for rods greatly increases AAV infectivity. Her work was featured on the cover, which shows a 3D-rendering of the outer nuclear layer 21 days post infection with AAV5-CMV-H2BGFP-IRES-Cre after subretinal injection at postnatal day 1 into the Ai9 tdTomato Cre-reporter line. Blue shows viral nuclear H2BGFP; green shows tdTomato expressions in transduced cells reporting viral Cre; red shows cones expressing cone arrestin and white shows nuclear DAPI. 

  • ago 18, 2016 How to stop Cone death in Retinitis Pigmentosa

    How to stop Cone death in Retinitis Pigmentosa

    Erika Camacho, Claudio Punzo and Stephen Wirkus show with a mathematical model that cone death can be halted at any time during the disease progression by increasing nutrient availability to cones in a recent article entitled "Quantifying the metabolic contribution to photoreceptor death in retinitis pigmentosa via a mathematical model" and published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology.

  • jun 22, 2016 Lolita Petit: Press Release of review

    Lolita Petit: Press Release of review

    Lolita Petit, Hemant Khanna, and Claudio Punzo, UMass Chan Medical School, Worcester, coauthored the article "Advances in Gene Therapy for Diseases of the Eye."

  • jun 22, 2016 IRRF highlights Marina's research on Webpage

    IRRF highlights Marina's research on Webpage

    International Retinal Research Foundation (IRRF) Reporst on Marina's research.
    "Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is characterized by malfunction and loss of retinal-pigmented epithelium (RPE) cells."

  • jun 5, 2016 Aditya: Class Speaker 2016

    Aditya: Class Speaker 2016

    Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Class of 2016 speaker Aditya Venkatesh will reflect on his path to science when he takes the stage at the 43rd UMass Chan Medical School Commencement on Sunday, June 5. As a child growing up in India, he said he was fascinated by biology and dreamed of becoming a doctor.

  • mar 24, 2015 Authors take on the role of mTORC1 in cone survival

    Authors take on the role of mTORC1 in cone survival

    Aditya and Claudio comment on their approach to significantly prolong cone survival in Retinitis Pigmentosa by activating mTORC1 in cones.

  • mar 23, 2015 Jean Bennett comments on mTORC1

    Jean Bennett comments on mTORC1

    The use of gene therapy for blinding disease shows growing promise; however, due to an ever-expanding list of disease-causing genes and mutations, the identification of a generic gene-based treatment is urgently needed. In this issue of the JCI, Venkatesh et al. and Xiong et al. exploit two different pathways to promote cone cell survival.....

  • ene 22, 2014 UMass Chan experts: New gene therapy success holds promise for retinal diseases

    UMass Chan experts: New gene therapy success holds promise for retinal diseases

    Gene therapy researchers at UMass Chan Medical School focused on degenerative retinal diseases are calling a promising new study out of the University of Oxford the “future” of gene therapy, after clinical trial participants with a rare eye disease experienced significant improvement in their vision.

1-15  of  18  items
of 2