Yedi Zhou

Central South University | CSU · Department of Ophthalmology

Background: Gene therapy is a treatment approach at the genetic level, which brings great advances in many diseases and develops rapidly in recent years. Currently, its mechanism of action is mainly through the replacement of missing or defective genes, or the reduction of harmful gene products. However, the application of gene therapy in ophthalm...

Exosomes are extracellular vesicles that can be produced by most cells. Exosomes act as important intermediaries in intercellular communication, and participate in a variety of biological activities between cells. Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) usually refer to RNAs that do not encode proteins. Although ncRNAs have no protein-coding capacity, they are ab...

The aim of the study is to reveal the expression profiling and clinical significance of peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) tRNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) of premature infants with treatment-requiring retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Significantly altered tsRNAs and miRNAs were screened using small RNA sequencing. RT-...

Ischemia-induced pathological neovascularization in the retina is a leading cause of blindness in various age groups. The purpose of the current study was to identify the involvement of circular RNAs (circRNAs) methylated by N6-methyladenosine (m6A), and predict their potential roles in oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR) in mice. Methylation assessme...

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a major cause of blindness worldwide and may be non-proliferative (NPDR) or proliferative (PDR). To Investig.gate the metabolomic and lipidomic characteristics of plasma in DR patients, plasma samples were collected from patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DR group) with PDR (n = 27), NPDR (n = 18), or no retinopath...

Purpose This study aims to reveal the altered expression profiles of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of patients with retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), and to identify potential biomarkers for ROP diagnosis. Methods Differentially expressed circRNAs in PBMCs of five infants with ROP and five controls were...

Purpose: Retinal neovascularization is a major cause of blindness. This study aimed to investigate the effects of IL-19 and the underlying mechanisms in a mouse model of oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR). Methods: C57BL/6J wild-type mice and IL-19 knockout (KO) mice were used to establish an OIR mouse model. Bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs...

PurposeWe sought to reveal the expression profiles of transfer RNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) in the vitreous humor of patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR).Methods Vitreous humor samples were obtained from PDR patients and a control group for this study. Sequencing of small RNAs was conducted to assess the...

Retinal neovascular diseases are major causes of blindness worldwide. As a common epitranscriptomic modification of eukaryotic RNAs, N⁶-methyladenosine (m⁶A) is associated with the pathogenesis of many diseases, including angiogenesis, through the regulation of RNA metabolism and functions. The aim of this study was to identify m⁶A modifications of...

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is the main risk factor for vision-threatening disease in premature infants with low birth weight. An accumulating number of independent studies have focused on ROP pathogenesis and have demonstrated that laser photocoagulation therapy and/or anti-VEGF treatment are effective. However, early diagnosis of ROP is stil...

Background: Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a retinal disease that causes blindness in premature infants. This study aimed to reveal the changes in amino acids and derivatives in the plasma of ROP patients compared with premature infants without ROP. Methods: Metabolomics targeting amino acids and their derivatives was conducted to assess their...

Purpose: Retinal neovascularization is a severe pathological process leading to irreversible blindness. This study aims to identify the altered metabolites and their related pathways that are involved in retinal neovascularization. Methods: To reveal the global metabolomic profile change in the retinal neovascularization process, an untargeted m...

Purpose Choroidal neovascularization (CNV) is the defining feature of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD). Gut microbiota might be deeply involved in the pathogenesis of nAMD. This study aimed to reveal the roles of the gut microbiome and fecal metabolome in a mouse model of laser-induced CNV. Methods The feces of C57BL/6J mice wit...

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is one of the major causes of visual impairment and irreversible blindness in developed regions. Aside from abnormal angiogenesis, inflammation is the most specific and might be the initiating factor of DR. As a key participant in inflammation, interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) can be detected in different parts of the eye and is r...

Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) is an autoimmune neurological disease that can cause blindness and disability. As the major mediators in the central nervous system, microglia plays key roles in immunological regulation in neuroinflammatory diseases, including NMOSD. Microglia can be activated by interleukin (IL)-6 and type I interfer...

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a blinding eye disease which incidence gradually increases with age. Inflammation participates in AMD pathogenesis, including choroidal neovascularization and geographic atrophy. It is also a kind of self-protective regulation from injury for the eyes. In this review, we described inflammation in AMD pathog...

Aim: To conduct a Meta-analysis for the change of interleukin-10 (IL-10) concentration in vitreous samples of patients with diabetic retinopathy (DR). Methods: Systemic search for literature was conducted from the databases of PubMed, Web of Science and Cochrane Library by August 2019. Statistical analyses including standard mean difference (SMD...

Myeloid‐derived suppressor cells (MDSC) are one of the major negative regulators of immune responses during many pathological conditions such as cancer and transplantation. Emerging evidence indicates that MDSC also contribute to tumor progression through their pro‐angiogenic activity in addition to immunosuppressive function. However, virtually no...

Transfer RNA-derived small RNA (tsRNA)s are novel non-coding RNAs, expressed in a variety of tissues and organs. Two subtypes of tsRNAs have been reported: tRNA-derived stress-induced RNA (tiRNA)s and tRNA-derived fragment (tRF)s. tsRNAs have been reported to play essential roles and possess different biological functions in a variety of physiologi...

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a potentially blinding condition caused by disruption of retinal vascularization and metabolism. This study aims to identify altered metabolites from plasma in patients with treatment-requiring ROP (TR-ROP) compared with controls. An untargeted metabolomics analysis was performed to reveal the metabolomic profile...

Retinal neovascularization (RNV) is characterized in retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), diabetic retinopathy (DR), and retinal vein occlusion (RVO), which leads to severe vision loss and even blindness. To reveal the altered transfer RNA-derived small RNA (tsRNA)s in RNV, and to investigate the underlying mechanisms of the altered tsRNAs involved in...

Macrophages are involved in angiogenesis, an essential process for organ growth and tissue repair, and could contribute to the pathogenesis of angiogenesis-related diseases such as malignant tumors and diabetic retinopathy. Recently, long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been proved to be important in cell differentiation, organismal development, and...

Purposes: To (i) identify dysregulated circular RNAs (circRNAs) and (ii) elucidate their potential functions in an animal (mouse) model of choroidal neovascularization (CNV), a prominent feature of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Methods: Expression profiles for circRNA were identified by microarray analysis. Selected circRNAs w...

Choroidal neovascularization (CNV) is a severe complication of the wet form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been implicated in the pathogenesis of different ocular neovascular diseases. To identify the function and therapeutic potential of lncRNAs in CNV, we assessed lncRNAs and mRNA expression profile...

Retinal neovascularization is a complication which caused human vision loss severely. It has been shown that circular RNAs (circRNAs) play essential roles in gene regulation. However, circRNA expression profile and the underlying mechanisms in retinal neovascular diseases remain unclear. In the present study, we identified altered circRNAs in the r...

Purpose: Choroidal neovascularization (CNV) is one of the major clinical characteristics of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Small non-coding RNAs, such as microRNAs (miRNAs) and transfer RNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs) play key roles in diverse biological functions. The purpose of the study was to investigate the roles and possi...

Aim: To identify disease-related miRNAs in retinas of mice with oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR), and to explore their potential roles in retinal pathological neovascularization. Methods: The retinal miRNA expression profile in mice with OIR and room air controls at postnatal day 17 (P17) were determined through miRNA microarray analysis. Severa...

Objective: Retinal neovascularization is a severe complication of many ocular diseases. To clarify the possible functions and therapeutic potential of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and messenger RNAs (mRNAs) in retinal neovascularization, we assessed their expression profile in a mouse model of oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR). Methods: Microarray...

Ocular neovascular diseases are featured by abnormal angiogenesis in the eye, and they seriously threaten the human visual health. These diseases include proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), age-related macular degeneration (AMD), retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), and retinal vein occlusion (RVO). In fact, ocular neovascular diseases represent...

Aim: To investigate the regulation and mechanisms of periostin expression in retinal Müller glia, and to explore the relevance to retinal neovascularization. Methods: The oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR) mouse model and the human Moorfield/Institute of Ophthalmology-Müller 1 (MIO-M1) cell line were used in the study. Immunofluorescence staining...

Congenital cataract is leading cause of visual impairment and blindness in children worldwide. Approximately one-third of congenital cataract cases are familial, whose genetic etiology can be distinguished by targeted exome sequencing. Here, a three-generation congenital cataract pedigree was recruited, and physical and ophthalmologic examinations...

Macrophages are involved in angiogenesis, and might also contribute to the pathogenesis of intraocular neovascular diseases. Recent studies indicated that macrophages exert different functions in the process of intraocular neovascularization, and the polarization of M1 and M2 phenotypes plays extremely essential roles in the diverse functions of ma...

Compared to intravitreal injection, subretinal injection has more direct effects on the targeting cells in the subretinal space, which provides a new therapeutic method for vitreoretinal diseases, especially when gene therapy and/or cell therapy is involved. To date, subretinal delivery has been widely applied by scientists and clinicians as a more...

Purpose The purpose of this study was to determine the degree of metamorphopsia using M-CHARTS™ in patients with idiopathic macular hole before and after pars plana vitrectomy and internal limiting membrane (ILM) peeling. Patients and methods The records of 22 eyes of 22 patients with a full-thickness macular hole who underwent pars plana vitrecto...

Choroidal neovascularization (CNV) is a serious complication of age‑related macular degeneration. The aim of the present study was to investigate the expression and distribution of M1 and M2 macrophages in a laser‑induced CNV adult mouse model. The mRNA expression levels of M1, M2 and pan macrophage markers, and macrophage‑associated angiogenic cyt...

• Gene therapy is a potentially effective treatment for retinal degenerative diseases. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) system has been developed as a new genome-editing tool in ophthalmic studies. Recent advances in researches showed that CRISPR/Cas9 has been applied in generatin...

Objective: Vigabatrin (VGB) is currently served as an effective adjunctive therapy for patients with partial epilepsy worldwide. In this study, meta-analysis was conducted to comprehensively evaluate the changes in peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness assessed by optical coherence tomography (OCT) in epilepsy patients who were...

Retinal neovascularization (NV) due to retinal ischemia remains one of the principal causes of vision impairment in patients with ischemic retinal diseases. We recently reported that periostin (POSTN) may play a role in the development of preretinal fibrovascular membranes, but its role in retinal NV has not been determined. The purpose of this stu...

Tenascin-C is expressed in choroidal neovascular (CNV) membranes in eyes with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). However, its role in the pathogenesis of CNV remains to be elucidated. Here we investigated the role of tenascin-C in CNV formation. In immunofluorescence analyses, tenascin-C co-stained with ?-SMA, pan-cytokeratin, CD31, CD34, and...

Hypoxia-induced retinal neovascularization is a major pathological condition in many vision-threatening diseases. In the present study, we determined whether interleukin (IL)-12, a cytokine that regulates angiogenesis, plays a role in the neovascularization in a mouse model of oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR). We found that the expressions of the m...

Purpose: We previously demonstrated that tenascin-C was highly expressed in the fibrovascular membranes (FVMs) of patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). However, its role in the pathogenesis of FVMs has not been determined. The purpose of this study was to investigate what role tenascin-C plays in the formation and angiogenesis of...

Purpose: In this study, we investigated the therapeutic potential of a Rho-associated coiled-coil-containing protein kinase (ROCK) inhibitor ripasudil (K-115) eye drop on retinal neovascularization and hypoxia. Methods: In vitro, human retinal microvascular endothelial cells (HRMECs) were pretreated with ripasudil and then stimulated with VEGF....

To investigate the roles played by M2 macrophages in a mouse model of oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR). Oxygen-induced retinopathy was induced in C57BL/6J mice by exposing postnatal day seven (P7) pups to 75% oxygen and then returning them to room air at P12. Real-time RT-PCR and immunofluorescence staining were used to assess the levels and distri...

To determine whether vitreal concentrations of MCP-1, IL-6 and IL-8 are altered after vitrectomy in patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) and to investigate whether the altered levels of these cytokines are associated with postoperative macular oedema. Vitreous samples were collected from 36 eyes of 33 patients with PDR before pars...

PURPOSE. To determine the profile of genes expressed in fibrovascular membranes (FVMs). METHODS. Six FVMs were surgically removed from patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) during pars plana vitrectomy. Total RNA was isolated from the six FVMs and also from three normal human retinas. DNA microarray analysis was performed to compar...

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a vision-threatening disease characterized by choroidal fibrovascular membrane (FVM) formation, choroidal neovascularization (CNV) and choroidal fibrosis. No safe and effective therapeutic method has been developed for the choroidal fibrosis, although anti-vascular endothelial growth factor therapy can part...

Purpose We recently demonstrated that M2 macrophages were involved in the development of fibrovascular membranes (FVM) associated with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) possibly through the induction of periostin. The purpose of this study was to determine whether macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF) and interleukin (IL)-13, inducers...

Aim To determine whether CD163, a specific marker for M2 macrophages, is involved in the formation of preretinal fibrovascular membranes (FVMs) present in eyes with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). Methods We measured the levels of soluble (s)CD163, periostin and vascular endothelial growth factor by sandwich ELISA in vitreous samples from...