Monday, January 3, 2011

What causes glaucoma?

New research study has found that in the optic nerve head, astrocytes have accumulated abnormal forms of gamma synuclein  a protein that is similar to abnormal forms of alpha synuclein( responsible for Parkinson's disease).  Removal of the debris of one cell by a neighboring cell occurs in glaucoma and Parkinson's disease.

Reference:

Judy V. Nguyen, Ileana Soto, Keun-Young Kim, Eric A. Bushong, Ericka Oglesby, Francisco J. Valiente-Soriano, Zhiyong Yang, Chung-Ha O. Davis, Joseph L. Bedont, Janice L. Son, John O. Wei, Vladimir L. Buchman, Donald J. Zack, Manuel Vidal-Sanz, Mark H. Ellisman, and Nicholas Marsh-Armstrong. Myelination transition zone astrocytes are constitutively phagocytic and have synuclein dependent reactivity in glaucoma. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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