[New drug therapy for retinal degeneration]

Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is an inherited retinal degeneration characterized by nyctalopia, ring scotoma, and bone-spicule pigmentation of the retina. So far, no effective therapy has been found for RP. As a possible molecular etiology of RP, retina-specific gene deficits are most likely involved, but little has been identified in terms of intracellular mechanisms leading to retinal photoreceptor cell death at post-translational levels. In order to find an effective therapy for RP, we must look for underlying common mechanisms that are responsible for the development of RP, instead of designing a specific therapy for each of the RP types with different causes. Therefore, in the present study, several animal models with different causes of RP were studied, including (1)Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rats with a deficit of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) function caused by rhodopsin mutation; (2) P23H rats, (3) S334ter rats, (4) photo stress rats, (5) retinal degeneration (rd) mice with a deficit of phosphodiesterase(PDE) function; and (6) cancer-associated retinopathy (CAR) model rats with a deficit of recoverin-dependent photoreceptor adaptation function. In each of these models, the following assessments were made in order to elucidate common pathological mechanisms among the models: (1) retinal function assessed by electroretinogram (ERG), (2) retinal morphology, (3) retinoid analysis, (4) rhodopsin regeneration, (5) rhodopsin phosphorylation and dephosphorylation, and (6) cytosolic cGMP levels. We found that unregulated photoreceptor adaptation processes caused by an imbalance of rhodopsin phosphorylation and dephosphorylation caused retinal dysfunction leading to photoreceptor cell death. As possible candidate drugs for normalizing these retinal dysfunctions and stopping further retinal degeneration, nilvadipine, a Ca channel blocker, retinoid derivatives, and anthocyanine were chosen and tested to determine their effect on the above animal models with retinal degeneration. Nilvadipine showed beneficial effects against retinal degeneration in all models tested, but retinoid derivatives and anthocyanine showed these beneficial effects in only some models. Thus our present data allowed us to test the effectiveness of nilvadipine in the treatment of human RP patients.