Skip to main content
News Abdullah 11.2021
left: Prof. Robert Finger; right: Prof. Zeinab Abdullah
© Johann Saba / UKB

News categories: Publication

Development of retinal disease closely linked to intestinal flora

Study on the role of intestinal flora, metabolism and immune defense in Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) receives research award

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the main cause of blindness and severe visual impairment at old age in Germany and throughout Europe. Prof. Zeinab Abdullah, member of ImmunoSensation2 and group leader at the Institute of Molecular Medicine & Experimental Immunology of the University Clinics Bonn and Prof. Robert Finger from the University Hospital Bonn are taking a closer look at immune mechanisms in AMD. The researchers investigate the interactions of intestinal flora, metabolism and immune defense. Prof. Abdullah and Prof. Finger have now received the EURETINA Medical Retina Clinical Research Award 2021 for their research project at the University of Bonn, which is endowed with 293,000 €.

AMD is a common age-related retinal disease. On average, one in three people over the age of 70 is affected by an early form. Of these, some develop advanced AMD, which often causes severe vision loss. Changes in the macula are already evident in one in four people over the age of 50. The macula is located in the center of the retina and contains the point of sharpest vision with millions of cone-shaped photoreceptors. In the early stages of the disease, metabolic deposits accumulate under the retina. "It progresses slowly over an average of ten years to late AMD," says Prof. Robert Finger, MD, associate director of the UKB Eye Clinic. "So far, however, there is no therapy that slows or stops this process."

In a new approach to derive treatment strategies, the scientists no follow the link between the development of retinal disease like AMD and the composition of the intestinal flora.

It is already known that endocrine inflammation and immune system dysfunction, including elevated inflammatory markers in the blood and reduced phagocytosis play a role in the development of AMD. Most recently, a correlation between the presence of certain bacteria in the gut, inflammatory processes and AMD could be shown. "However, all of this has not yet been considered together in a study. In order to better understand AMD, the disease stages, the intestinal flora, the metabolism as well as the inflammatory processes as part of the immune system must be comprehensively studied together," says Prof. Dr. Zeinab Abdullah. Together with Prof. Finger, she hopes to discover new biomarkers associated with increased or decreased risk of disease development.

Contact

Prof. Dr. Zeinab Abdullah

Institute of Molecular Medicine & Experimental Immunology

University Hospital Bonn

Phone: +49 228 287-11138

E-mail: zeinab.abdullah@ukbonn.de

Related news

News_Lukacs-Kornek

News categories: Publication

Obesity causes lungs to age prematurely

What effects does severe obesity have on the lungs? A research team led by Prof. Dr. Veronika Lukacs-Kornek from the ‘ImmunoSensation2’ Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bonn and the Institute for Molecular Medicine and Experimental Immunology (IMMEI) at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) investigated this question. The results suggest that obesity causes the lungs to age faster. The findings have been published in the journal ‘Cell Reports’.
View entry
filamentous actin structures in T cells

News categories: Publication

How Cell Skeleton Defects Can Teach Immunology

For immune cells, the actin cytoskeleton is more than a structural scaffold. Immune cells can migrate to sites of infection or form precise, short-lived contacts with other cells, by constantly reshaping their actin cytoskeleton. Genetic errors in the molecular machinery controlling actin dynamics lead to impaired immunity, and often to autoimmunity and chronic inflammation. An overview of the current state of research on immune-related actinopathies, prepared by scientists arround ImmunoSensation² member Prof. Kaan Boztug, has now been published in Nature Reviews Immunology.
View entry
Wachten lab

News categories: Publication

Fat cells under false command

Too much fat can be unhealthy: how fat cells, so-called adipocytes, develop, is crucial for the function of the fat tissue. That is why a team led by researchers from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn investigated the influence of primary cilia dysfunction on adipocyte precursor cells in a mouse model. They found that overactivation of the Hedgehog signaling pathway causes abnormal development into connective tissue-like cells instead of white fat cells. Their findings have now been published in The EMBO Journal.
View entry

Back to the news overview