Scientists have identified 13 new genetic factors linked to the risk of age-related macular degeneration that could serve as therapeutic targets for potential drug development.
An international team from Moorfields and researchers at UCL’s Institute of Ophthalmology announced the findings this week, saying they widened understanding of the biological processes leading to AMD.
According to the research results, which were published in the journal Nature Genetics, a study of 43,000 people identified 13 new regions of the genome loci that influence the risk of AMD. Worldwide this increased the number of known loci to 34.
One of the study’s principal investigators at Moorfields and UCL, Professor John Yates, said: ‘Thanks to researchers from around the world pooling their resources and working together, exciting progress has been made in our understanding of the role of genetic factors in AMD. Identifying genetic variants that influence the risk of being affected by AMD helps us understand the causes of this serious condition and could contribute to the development of new treatments.’
Moorfields Eye Hospital and the Institute of Ophthalmology made up one of the 26 centres worldwide which contributed to the ‘International AMD Genomics Consortium’, a statement said. Together the consortium has collected and analysed genetic data from 43,566 people of predominantly European ancestry, including 23,000 participants with AMD. Nevertheless, the variants identified by the international consortium still cannot account for all of the heritability of AMD, added Grace Shen, a group leader and director of the retinal diseases program at the National Eye Institute.