Abstract
Corneal neovascularization (CNV) is a complication of inflammatory and hypoxic ocular pathologies or immune response to ocular infections. CNV is a manifestation of an imbalance between pro-angiogenic and anti-angiogenic signaling molecules. Despite a magnitude of evidence suggesting angiogenic signaling molecules play a pivotal role in modulating CNV, there are insufficient current pharmacologic treatment options for CNV. Thus, targeting signaling molecules appears to be one promising treatment. Multiple drugs have been used off-label and have shown success in treating CNV, most notably the anti-VEGF medications. In addition, novel drugs are being developed and studied for CNV. This article will describe various molecular mechanisms that induce angiogenesis in the cornea, in addition to potential chemotherapies for CNV that inhibit these molecular mechanisms. This review is pertinent but not all-inclusive. The authors will give examples of publications that have reported novel discoveries related to potential future anti-CNV therapies.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank and acknowledge D Reza and W Stevenson for providing the photographs and information in Figure 5.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
This research was supported in part by funding from the National Eye Institute (PS Bhattacharjee: R21-EY019144 647; JM Hill: R01-EY006311), National Cancer Institute (AC Ochoa: R01-CA107974; PC Rodriguez: R21-CA162133), NIH National Institute on Aging (WJ Lukiw: AG18031; WJ Lukiw: AG038834; JM Hill: AG23085; AC Ochoa, TP Foster, PC Rodriguez: P20GMM103501), National Center for Research Resources (P20RR016456), National Institute of General Medical Sciences (P20GM103424) and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (HE McFerrin Jr: NIH-RCM1 5G12RR02620). This research was also supported by an unrestricted research grant from the LSU Health Sciences Center (JM Hill), Transitional Research Initiative grants (WJ Lukiw and JM Hill), a research grant from Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans (JM Hill), a Research to Prevent Blindness Senior Scientific Investigator Award (JM Hill), an unrestricted grant to the LSU Eye Center (NY, USA) from RPB, the Louisiana Biotechnology Research Network (WJ Lukiw, JM Hill), an Alzheimer Association Investigator-Initiated Research grant (WJ Lukiw: IIRG-09-131729), the Louisiana Cancer Research Consortium (PS Bhattacharjee, HE McFerrin Jr), the Louisiana Lions Eye Foundation, (LA, USA), the Louisiana Vaccine Center sponsored by the Louisiana Board of Regents (JM Hill) and Lions International USA. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.