Researchers at the University of Michigan recently published results of a study that focused on the dependence of photoreceptors on the amino acid, glutamine.
Results of the study were published in eLife and they reveal that maintaining a balance of amino acids in photoreceptors is important for the health of those cells. Photoreceptors are responsible for receiving light and transmitting visual data to the brain and the death of these cells is responsible for vision loss in many retinal diseases.
Glutamine is the most prolific amino acid in the blood and it feeds into several pathways, which help cells build other amino acids. Armed with this knowledge, researchers used mice that lacked the enzyime glutaminase, which breaks down glutamine into glutamate and then compared them to control mice by measuring the thickness of their retinas. The mice that were deprived of glutaminase had a fast reduction in retinal thickness with loss of function in photoreceptor cells as well as the death of these cells.
Researchers are now focusing on understanding which pathways depend on glutamine and will determine if those pathways can be targeted by drugs or supplements.
