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Editors Selection IGR 11-3

Basic research: Retinal ganglion cells: Optineurin

Comment by Leonard A. Levin on:

18232 A glaucoma-associated mutant of optineurin selectively induces death of retinal ganglion cells which is inhibited by antioxidants, Chalasani ML; Radha V; Gupta V et al., Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, 2007; 48: 1607-1614

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Optineurin is a protein encoded by a gene mutated in a subgroup of patients with glaucoma, including many with normal intraocular pressure. Although the mechanism by which the mutated gene leads to glaucoma is unclear, one possibility is an increased susceptibility to retinal ganglion cell (RGC) death. The paper of Chalasaniet al. (458) is significant, because they showed that the most common optineurin mutant protein was able to cause death in a RGC line, but not in other cell lines. This might explain why the phenotype of the optineurin mutations is primarily an optic neuropathy. In addition, this paper demonstrated that the death may be associated with increased levels of reactive oxygen species, which would accord with our own work showing that RGCs generate superoxide as a result of axonal injury.

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