[Progress in treatment of retinitis pigmentosa by neurotrophic factors]

Neurotrophic factors (NTFs) are pro-survival, pleiotrophic polypeptides which can play an important role in growth, differentiation and function maintenance of neurons. Many of them have been applied to treat various neurodegenerative diseases. Retinitis pigmentosa (RP), characterized by the impairment of photoreceptor-retinal pigment epithelium complex, is a retinal neurodegenerative disease with highly genetic heterogeneity. NTFs, one of the therapy approaches not targeting the mutation gene, have been proved to be effective in multiple types of animal models of retinal degeneration. Recent success in delivery of NTF genes by viral vectors or encapsulated cell technology (ECT) to degenerative retina provides an efficient administration approaches with great improvement in therapeutic effects. Further exploration for NTFs in the aspects of modulation of expression, location of receptors, signaling pathways, short- and long-term effects including side-effects will establish the foundation for clinical application of NTFs.