lnterleukin-18 inhibits experimental choroidal neovascularization and its potential therapeutic applications / 中华眼底病杂志

ABSTRACT

Interleukin-18 is an inactive precursor which lacks a signal peptide,it has a role inregulating retinal pathological angiogenesis.It also inhibits experimental choroidal neovascularization (CNV)via interferon-γand thrombospondin-1.Currently little is known about its mechanisms of inhibition forCNV,may be speculated to be due to effects of anti-angiogenesis,down-regulates vascular permeability andlower vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) levels via directly acting on the vascular endothelial celland epithelial cells.Exogenous administration of mature recombinant interleukin-18 has no adverse effect onretinal pigment epithelial cell viability.In addition,the anti-VEGF role of interleukin-18 is tested to be safeand effective for humans.Interleukin-18 alone or in combination with anti-VEGF shows to be a goodprospect for improving the prognosis of experimental CNV.However,more large clinical studies arerequired to confirm the exact efficacy of interleukin-18 for CNV.