Current opinion on the role of angiogenic factors in the development of diabetic retinopathy

Abstract

The pathological outgrowth of new blood vessels in the bottom of the eye and during eyeball tissue disruption are currently responsible for most cases of vision loss. Aberrant blood vessel growth in the retina, which underlies the pathology of proliferative diabetic retinopathy, is the result of the ischemia-driven disruption of the normally antiangiogenic environment of the retina. Ischemic retinopathies are thought to be caused by the increase of activators of neovascularization and vessel wall leakage, as well as by the decreased activity of the angiogenesis inhibitors. The most important proangiogenic factors include: basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), placental growth factor (PIGF), insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) when pigment epithelium-derived growth factor (PEDF) is discovered to be their natural inhibitor. In this review, the current knowledge concerning the role of angiogenic factors in the development of diabetic retinopathy is presented.