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

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 epig...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Trends in molecular medicine Vol. 27; no. 4; pp. 365 - 378
Main Authors: Basinski, Brian W., Balikov, Daniel A., Aksu, Michael, Li, Qiang, Rao, Rajesh C.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.04.2021
Subjects:
Animals
Anophthalmos - genetics
Anophthalmos - therapy
blindness
Blindness - etiology
Blindness - genetics
Blindness - therapy
Cell- and Tissue-Based Therapy - methods
Cell- and Tissue-Based Therapy - trends
Chromatin - pathology
Coloboma - genetics
Coloboma - therapy
Congenital Abnormalities - genetics
Congenital Abnormalities - therapy
development
Disease Models, Animal
epigenetics
Epigenomics
Humans
Microphthalmos - genetics
Microphthalmos - therapy
Pluripotent Stem Cells
Regenerative Medicine - methods
Regenerative Medicine - trends
retina
Retina - cytology
Retina - pathology
Retinal Diseases - genetics
Retinal Diseases - therapy
stem cells
Transcription Factors - genetics
Transcription Factors - metabolism
stem cells
development
retina
blindness
epigenetics
ISSN:1471-4914, 1471-499X, 1471-499X
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary: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. Surprisingly, many ubiquitous chromatin-modifying regulators control retinal development. They are linked to congenital blinding diseases such as microphthalmia.Disruption of retinal cell fate occurs via alterations in the catalytic activity of chromatin modifiers, inactivation of non-catalytic cofactors that comprise non-canonical epigenetic complexes, and temporal dysregulation of protein–transcription factor (TF) interactions that engage chromatin.Advances in PSC-derived retinal organoids and epigenomic technologies have enabled a deeper understanding of the causal role of chromatin accessibility and modifications, and of non-coding regions of the genome, in microphthalmia.Such advances provide translational insights into the roles of epigenetic memory and TF (e.g., TP53) mutations in source PSCs used for cell therapies in age-related blinding diseases.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
ObjectType-Review-3
content type line 23
ISSN:1471-4914
1471-499X
1471-499X
DOI:10.1016/j.molmed.2021.01.001