生物谷：研究人员在7月出版的《自然—医学》（Nature Medicine）期刊上报告说，在饮食中增添ω—3多不饱和脂肪酸也许有助于眼睛疾病的防治。
从早产儿视网膜病变到糖尿病视网膜病变，许多视力受到威胁的眼疾特征是眼睛中的血管不正常生 长。 Lois Smith和同事研究了ω—3多不饱和脂肪酸在眼睛受伤的小鼠眼睛血管中丢失和重新生长的过程。他们发现，通过饮食添加或转基因技术来增加这种酸的含量，就会减少眼睛中炎症介质的产量，从而限制血管的病态生长。
西方饮食通常缺少足够的ω—3多不饱和脂肪酸，对胎儿来说，这种酸是在最后3个孕期由母亲传输给胎儿，因此，早产儿缺乏这种酸。Smith等认为，在饮食中补充ω—3多不饱和脂肪酸也许有助于预防视网膜病的发生。（科学时报）
原始出处:
Nature Medicine 13, 868 - 873 (2007)
Published online: 24 June 2007 | doi:10.1038/nm1591
Increased dietary intake of -3-polyunsaturated fatty acids reduces pathological retinal angiogenesis
Kip M Connor1,9, John Paul SanGiovanni2,9, Chatarina Lofqvist1,3, Christopher M Aderman1, Jing Chen1, Akiko Higuchi1, Song Hong4, Elke A Pravda1, Sharon Majchrzak5, Deborah Carper6, Ann Hellstrom7, Jing X Kang8, Emily Y Chew2, Norman Salem, Jr5, Charles N Serhan4 & Lois E H Smith1
Many sight-threatening diseases have two critical phases, vessel loss followed by hypoxia-driven destructive neovascularization. These diseases include retinopathy of prematurity and diabetic retinopathy, leading causes of blindness in childhood and middle age affecting over 4 million people in the United States. We studied the influence of -3- and -6-polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) on vascular loss, vascular regrowth after injury, and hypoxia-induced pathological neovascularization in a mouse model of oxygen-induced retinopathy1. We show that increasing -3-PUFA tissue levels by dietary or genetic means decreased the avascular area of the retina by increasing vessel regrowth after injury, thereby reducing the hypoxic stimulus for neovascularization. The bioactive -3-PUFA-derived mediators neuroprotectinD1, resolvinD1 and resolvinE1 also potently protected against neovascularization. The protective effect of -3-PUFAs and their bioactive metabolites was mediated, in part, through suppression of tumor necrosis factor-. This inflammatory cytokine was found in a subset of microglia that was closely associated with retinal vessels. These findings indicate that increasing the sources of -3-PUFA or their bioactive products reduces pathological angiogenesis. Western diets are often deficient in -3-PUFA, and premature infants lack the important transfer from the mother to the infant of -3-PUFA that normally occurs in the third trimester of pregnancy2. Supplementing -3-PUFA intake may be of benefit in preventing retinopathy.
Department of Ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School, Children's Hospital Boston, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Research, National Eye Institute, 10 Center Drive, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
Department of Pediatrics, Sahlgrenska Academy, Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden.
Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 75 Francis Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
Laboratory of Membrane Biochemistry and Biophysics, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 12420 Parklawn Drive, Rockville, Maryland 20892, USA.
Office of the Director, National Eye Institute, 31 Center Drive, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
Dept of Clinical Neurosciences, Sahlgrenska Academy, Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden.
Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Correspondence to: Lois E H Smith1 e-mail: lois.smith@childrens.harvard.edu
