About Cataract

What is Cataract?

A cataract is an eye disease characterized by clouding of the lens, including congenital cataracts and age-related cataracts, and is currently the leading cause of human blindness worldwide. The mechanism by which this occurs is related to proteins aggregating due to various post-translational modifications.According to the World Health Organization, more than 40 percent of blindness cases are caused by cataracts. As the population ages, the prevalence of cataracts will increase rapidly.

Cataract Treatment Strategies

• Current Strategy: Surgical Treatment

To date, there are no pharmacological interventions available for the treatment of cataracts, and cataract surgery, although considered effective, still suffers from complications and high costs, and cannot meet the growing demand for surgery.

• Potential Strategy: Drug Treatment

Medical treatment of cataracts is a cheaper and more accessible option for patients and has been a hot topic for years. Based on models of cataract development and proposed mechanisms of its formation, attempts have been made to slow cataract development using herbs and/or antioxidants, amino acids, and minerals. Interfering with protein aggregation pathways and modulating chaperone activity to facilitate refolding are also among the efforts that have been attempted. At present, the screening of anti-cataract drugs is mainly based on specific pathogenic factors: oxidative stress, excess quinones, activation of aldose reductase (AR), etc. Table 1 lists the development and application of some anti-cataract drugs.

Tab.1. Summary of drug candidates. (Xu J, et al., 2020)

Although cataracts have been the leading cause of preventable blindness worldwide for decades, pharmaceutical strategies to mitigate, prevent, or cure this blinding disease remain elusive, and surgery remains a challenge due to its ever-increasing cost and patient numbers. Therefore, drug therapy may be an effective way. Over the past few decades, considerable research has focused on pharmacological strategies using sulfhydryl combinations of antioxidants, AR inhibitors, and quinone inhibitors to prevent and delay cataract progression without ultimately affecting the endpoint.

Excitingly, antioxidants and oxysterols have been shown to improve or reverse lens clouding in cataract models. However, further studies are needed to explore the exact mechanisms involved in cataract formation and regulation of lens protein homeostasis, which will help to find new therapeutic targets and new candidate compounds for cataracts, as well as enhance the ability to prevent and/or treat cataracts.

One-Stop Preclinical Cataract Studies Solutions

As an industry-leading comprehensive contract research organization (CRO), Ace Therapeutics focuses on the health of ocular diseases and improves ocular diseases by helping customers provide drug discovery and preclinical research solutions. Our support staff averages decades of experience in preclinical ophthalmology research for pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies, and large CROs, who help customers around the world deal with each stage of preclinical drug development. Our one-stop solutions cover the development of ocular disease models, in vivo ocular pharmacodynamic studies, ocular tolerance and safety studies, early pilot studies, and proof-of-concept and bioanalytical levels. All of our projects are customizable and flexible, which allows us to fully understand our clients' needs and how to meet them.

At Ace Therapeutics, our team of experts is dedicated to supporting preclinical cataract research. Our talented scientists have induced cataracts or other lens abnormalities to form a variety of cataract models by knocking out the disease-causing genes related to human cataracts in zebrafish embryos. These models help you develop new treatments against cataracts. Importantly, our expert team can also develop customized cataract models by knocking out specific genes according to your needs. With decades of cataract research experience, we have independently developed a series of zebrafish gene mutation cataract models that have been verified by a large number of experiments to accelerate your preclinical ocular drug efficacy evaluation.

References

1. Xu J, Fu Q, Chen X, et al. Advances in pharmacotherapy of cataracts. Ann Transl Med. 2020, 8(22):1552.
2. Lee BJ, Afshari NA. Advances in drug therapy and delivery for cataract treatment. Curr Opin Ophthalmol. 2023, 34(1):3-8.
3. Heruye SH, Maffofou Nkenyi LN, Singh NU, et al. Current Trends in the Pharmacotherapy of Cataracts. Pharmaceuticals (Basel). 2020, 13(1):15.

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