Targeting endothelial ERG to mitigate vascular regression in retinopathies
OA Location
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and diabetic retinopathy (DR) are ocular disorders in which an initial loss of retinal capillaries leads to damaging tissue ischemia followed by a compensatory neovascularization response that generates pathological capillaries in the eye. Using a mouse model of ROP and samples from DR patients, we found that the highly homologous and homeostatic erythroblast transformation-specific (ETS) family transcription factors ETS-related gene (ERG) and Friend leukemia integration 1 (FLI1) are downregulated in endothelial cells (ECs) of retinal capillaries prior to their regression in early stages of these diseases. We developed a mouse model of inducible EC-specific overexpression of Erg and found it mitigates capillary regression, retinal neuron death, neovascularization, and visual defects in the ROP model. Erg overexpression also reduces capillary regression in early stages of a murine DR model. We next found that simultaneous deletion of endothelial Erg and Fli1 is sufficient to promote regression of the pathological retinal capillaries that arise in late stages of the ROP model. Altogether, our data demonstrate that deletion of homeostatic endothelial ETS factors promotes capillary regression, while maintenance of even one of these factors prevents regression. These findings offer insights into approaches for preventing and treating retinopathies at different stages of these diseases.
Date Issued
2025-09-30
Date Acceptance
2025-07-31
Citation
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2025, 122 (39)
ISSN
0027-8424
Publisher
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Start Page
e2507194122
Journal / Book Title
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Volume
122
Issue
39
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2025 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/40986356
Subjects
diabetic retinopathy
microvascular rarefaction
retina
retinopathy of prematurity
transcriptional regulator ERG
Animals
Transcriptional Regulator ERG
Mice
Diabetic Retinopathy
Humans
Disease Models, Animal
Retinal Vessels
Endothelial Cells
Retinopathy of Prematurity
Proto-Oncogene Protein c-fli-1
Capillaries
Oncogene Proteins
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Article Number
e2507194122
Date Publish Online
2025-09-23