title: Pharmacological approaches to restoring lens transparency: Real world applications.
abstract: Cataract is the most common cause of blindness and a major cause of visual impairment worldwide. As the world's population ages, cataract-induced visual impairment is of increasing prevalence, and treatment is limited to those with access to surgical care. While cataracts are mainly a disease of the elderly, infantile cataracts lead to lifelong visual impairment if untreated. Even in those with surgical treatment early in life, visual prognosis is often guarded. Consequently, there is an increasing impetus for alternative therapeutic modalities. Makley and Zhao utilize two different experimental approaches to identify novel pharmacological substances able to improve lens transparency by reducing aggregation of crystalline proteins. These data support an alternative to surgical correction that may be applied to adult patients without access to surgical care as well as address the unique challenges of infantile cataracts.
authors.affiliation: a University of Cincinnati College of Medicine , Cincinnati , Ohio , USA.
authors.forename: Cassandra
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Skinner
authors.affiliation: a University of Cincinnati College of Medicine , Cincinnati , Ohio , USA.|b Abrahamson Pediatric Eye Institute, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center , Cincinnati , Ohio , USA.|c Department of Ophthalmology , University of Cincinnati , Cincinnati , Ohio , USA.
authors.forename: Virginia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Miraldi Utz
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001766:Blindness / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D002386:Cataract / Q000517:prevention & control*; D003459:Crystallins / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D006888:Hydroxycholesterols / Q000494:pharmacology*; D007810:Lanosterol / Q000494:pharmacology*; D007908:Lens, Crystalline / Q000737:chemistry / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D066263:Protein Aggregation, Pathological / Q000188:drug therapy*; D019987:Persons with Visual Disabilities; D038203:alpha-Crystallin B Chain / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: C511246:CRYAA protein, human; C059215:CRYAB protein, human; D003459:Crystallins; D006888:Hydroxycholesterols; D038203:alpha-Crystallin B Chain; D007810:Lanosterol; C025574:5-cholestene-3 beta,12 alpha-diol
keywords: Cataract; infantile cataract; lens transparency; pediatric cataract; pharmacological chaperone