Current knowledge on diabetic retinopathy from humandonor tissues

According to the American Diabetes Association, diabetes was the seventh leading cause of death, and diabetic retinopathy the leading cause of blindness in working age adults in the United States in 2010. Diabetes is characterized by hyperglycemia associated with either hypoinsulinemia or insulin resistance, and over time, this chronic metabolic condition may lead to various complications including kidney failure, heart attacks,and retinal degeneration. In order to better understandthe molecular basis of this disease and its complications,animal models have been the primary approach usedto investigate the effects of diabetes on various tissuesor cell types of the body, including the retina. However,inherent to these animal models are critical limitationsthat make the insight gained from these modelschallenging to apply to the human pathology. Thesedifficulties in translating the knowledge obtained fromanimal studies have led a growing number of researchgroups to explore the diabetes complications, especiallydiabetic retinopathy, on tissues from human donors.This review summarizes the data collected from diabeticpatients at various stages of diabetic retinopathy andclassifies the data based upon their relevance to themain aspects of diabetic retinopathy： retinal vasculaturedysfunction, inflammation, and neurodegeneration. Thisreview discusses the importance of those studies todiscriminate and establish the relevance of the findingsobtained from animal models but also the limitations ofsuch approaches.