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Updated: Jul 23, 2025
A Phenotyping Regimen for Genetically Modified Mice Used to Study Genes Implicated in Human Diseases of Aging
Published on: July 14, 2016
Regulation of ABCA1 by miR-33 and miR-34a in the Aging Eye
Florian Peters1, Christian Grimm2
1Laboratory for Retinal Cell Biology, Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Schlieren, Switzerland. florian.peters@usz.ch.
Abstract:
Many age-related diseases, including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), go along with local lipid accumulation and dysregulated lipid metabolism. Several genes involved in lipid metabolism, including ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1), were associated with AMD through genome-wide association studies. Recent studies have shown that loss of ABCA1 in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) leads to lipid accumulation and RPE atrophy, a hallmark of AMD, and that antagonizing ABCA1-targeting microRNAs (miRNAs) attenuated pathological changes to the RPE or to macrophages. Here, we focus on two lipid metabolism-modulating miRNAs, miR-33 and miR-34a, which show increased expression in aging RPE cells, and on their potential to regulate ABCA1 levels, cholesterol efflux, and lipid accumulation in AMD pathogenesis.
