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Metabolomics of Diabetic Retinopathy

  • Microvascular Complications—Retinopathy (JK Sun and PS Silva, Section Editors)
  • Published:
Current Diabetes Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

Metabolomics is the study of dysregulated metabolites in biological materials. We reviewed the use of the technique to elucidate the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to the development of diabetic retinopathy.

Recent Findings

With regard to metabolomic studies of diabetic retinopathy, the field remains in its infancy with few studies published to date and little replication of results. Vitreous and serum samples are the main tissues examined, and dysregulation in pathways such as the pentose phosphate pathway, arginine to proline pathway, polyol pathway, and ascorbic acidic pathways have been reported.

Summary

Few studies have examined the metabolomic underpinnings of diabetic retinopathy. Further research is required to replicate findings to date and determine longitudinal associations with disease.

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Acknowledgements

NHMRC Early Career Fellowship Grant APP1073530 to Gerald Liew

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Vision Research, Westmead Millennium Institute of Medical Research, University of Sydney, Westmead, Sydney, 2145, Australia

    Gerald Liew, Nichole Joachim, Paul Mitchell & Bamini Gopinath

  2. South West Retina, Retina Associates, Liverpool, Sydney, Australia

    Gerald Liew & I-Van Ho

  3. Duke-NUS School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Zhou Lei, Gavin Tan & Tien Y. Wong

  4. Save Sight Institute, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    I-Van Ho

  5. Australian School of Advanced Medicine, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

    I-Van Ho

  6. Mass Spectrometry Core Facility, Building D17, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Ben Crossett

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  1. Gerald Liew
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gerald Liew.

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Conflict of Interest

Gerald Liew, Zhou Lei, Nichole Joachim, I-Van Ho, Tien Y. Wong, Paul Mitchell, Bamini Gopinath, and Ben Crossett declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Gavin Tan reports being on the Advisory board for Novartis, travel support from Bayer, research support from Santen, speaker for Abbott Medical, and speaker and travel support from Allergan.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Microvascular Complications—Retinopathy

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Liew, G., Lei, Z., Tan, G. et al. Metabolomics of Diabetic Retinopathy. Curr Diab Rep 17, 102 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11892-017-0939-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11892-017-0939-3

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