Lectures and seminars Research seminar at Division of Eye and Vision - James Tribble

Title: Preventing retinal homocysteine dysregulation protects against retinal ganglion cell death.

Speaker: James Tribble is Assistant Professor in Pete Williams group. James’ research is focused on neuroinflammation and metabolism. James trained in Cardiff University beforejoining the Williams group as a postdoc in 2018. James will present his latest work as a postdoc under Pete Williams.

Metabolic dysfunction has emerged as a key early component of glaucoma. We identify elevated retinalhomocysteine as a strong early metabolomic signature, with early-and sustained-dysregulation of genesinvolved in homocysteine’s wider metabolism. We assessed whether elevated homocysteine contributed toretinal ganglion cell degeneration in animal models and in large-scale human data.Metabolism of homocysteine requires vitamin B6 and B12 as essential cofactors, and folic acid (B9) and cholineare essential precursors. We explored the possibility of local retinal deficiency in these vitamins, and thepotential of supplementing these in the diet to protect retinal ganglion cells from degeneration in glaucoma.