Adenosine triphosphate maintenance by branched chain amino acids as a novel neuroprotective strategy for retinal neurodegenerative diseases

Retinal neuronal cell death is caused in many incurable eye diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa(RP)and glaucoma,which are leading causes of adult blindness.In RP,progressive loss of photoreceptor cells leads to visual disturbance.No established treatments are available to date for this condition,although potential treatments,including regenerative medicine,gene therapy,and neurotropic factor therapy are being investigated.In glaucoma。

Retinal ganglion cell protection by hop-flower extract as a novel neuroprotective strategy for glaucoma

In glaucoma,a leading cause of blindness,retinal ganglion cells are progressively damaged.Intraocular pressure reduction is the only established treatment for glaucoma(Collaborative Normal-Tension Glaucoma Study Group,1998;Vass et al.,2007).However,in some cases,visual field loss progresses despite sufficiently reduced intraocular pressure(Collaborative Normal-Tension Glaucoma Study Group,1998;Killer and Pircher,2018).While intraocular pressure and age are known risk factors for glaucoma(Ernest et al.,2013),the underlying mechanisms of glaucoma progression are not fully understood.