Dr. Lingli Zhou from Johns Hopkins University Awarded $70,000 Knights Templar Eye Foundation Grant for Retinopathy of Prematurity Research

Dr. Lingli Zhou from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland was awarded a $70,000 grant for the research proposal entitled: Role and mechanism of Sema3F in retinopathy of prematurity

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is one of the leading causes of childhood blindness in the United States and worldwide. It is critical to identify and understand additional factors that regulate vascular disease progression, that could then be targeted for human ROP treatment. Here Dr. Zhou shows that Sema3F protein is a novel regulator of abnormal pathologic blood vessels in the retina. Sema3F is expressed in both premature human retina and the mouse model of oxygen induced retinopathy, a model of ROP. Depletion of neuronal Sema3F inhibits pathologic neovascularization and blood retinal barrier breakdown in OIR. Sema3F binds to endothelial cells and pericytes. There is particularly strong binding of Sema3F to pericytes in the presence of VEGF. Interestingly, Dr. Zhou’s studies did not demonstrate any direct effect of Sema3F on endothelial cells. Since pericytes are known to regulate endothelial cell growth and barrier function, Dr. Zhou’s hypothesis is that Sema3F is a novel regulator of pathologic angiogenesis, via direct regulation of pericytes. For this project, Dr. Zhou therefore proposes the following aims: 1) To investigate the effect of targeting the Sema3F coreceptor Nrp2 on neovascularization and blood-retinal barrier breakdown in OIR. 2) To determine the role of Sema3F as a novel regulator of pericyte function. Altogether, this project aims to provide important new insights into the regulation of pathologic retinal neovascularization in ROP by pericytes and also the identification of Sema3F as a novel regulator in ROP that could be targeted in patients.