Transporters may help delay diabetes-related reti...(thalmology and Visual Science that showe...),Health

Now she is one of four investigators nationally to receive a Pathway to Independence Award for new investigators from the National Eye Institute that will help her elucidate these transporters activity in healthy and diseased states.

Lactate and ketone bodies are substances called monocarboxylates and previously there was no evidence that transporters that typically haul these substances around are elevated in diabetes. But these monocarboxylate transporters, or MCTs, are more passive than the recently discovered, sodium-coupled SMCT1 and SMCT2 which are driven, able to go against the concentration gradient and change substrates, like lactate, from low to high concentrations inside the cells, says Dr. Martin.

If you have these transporters, they can transport these substrates into your retina and hopefully prevent some of the neuronal cell damage that occurs, Dr. Martin says.

An aggressive vehicle is necessary since, like the brain, the retina has a natural barrier to prevent many substances in the blood from reaching the eye.

The MCG researcher has shown SMCT1 is expressed in retinal neurons and in the retinal pigmented epithelium, one of the back layers of the multi-layer retina that is important in terms of transporting good things in and waste products out. SMCT2 is primarily expressed in supportive retinal Mller cells.

One of the many questions she wants to answer is whether they play different roles in these different cell types.

Shes using two diabetic mouse models, one that develops type 1 diabetes at about three weeks, which is comparable to children developing the disease in their first few years of life. The second is a mouse she makes diabetic, so she will know the precise moment it happens.

Shell look at the expression, activity and function of these transporters in both models and is optimis
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