Ubiquitous Chromatin Modifiers in Congenital Retinal Diseases: Implications for Disease Modeling and Regenerative Medicine.

Ubiquitous Chromatin Modifiers in Congenital Retinal Diseases: Implications for Disease Modeling and Regenerative Medicine. Trends Mol Med. 2021 Feb 08;: Authors: Basinski BW, Balikov DA, Aksu M, Li Q, Rao RC Abstract Retinal congenital malformations known as microphthalmia, anophthalmia, and coloboma (MAC) are associated with alterations in genes encoding epigenetic proteins that modify chromatin. We review newly discovered functions of such chromatin modifiers in retinal development and discuss the role of epigenetics in MAC in humans and animal models. Further, we highlight how advances in epigenomic technologies provide foundational and regenerative medicine-related insights into blinding disorders. Combining knowledge of epigenetics and pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) is a promising avenue because epigenetic factors cooperate with eye field transcription factors (EFTFs) to direct PSC fate - a foundation for congenital retinal disease modeling and cell therapy. PMID: 33573910 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Trends in Molecular Medicine - Category: Molecular Biology Authors: Tags: Trends Mol Med Source Type: research