REVIEW article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Diabetes: Molecular Mechanisms
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2025.1617797
This article is part of the Research TopicNew Insights on Vascular and Metabolic Diabetic ComplicationsView all 16 articles
A New Perspective on Protecting the Blood-Retinal Barrier Against Injury in Diabetic Retinopathy: Mitophagy
Provisionally accepted
- 1Guang’anmen Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
- 2Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
- 3Jiangsu Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine Affiliated to Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine,Nanjing,China, Nanjing, Liaoning Province, China
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The blood-retinal barrier (BRB) comprises the inner blood-retinal barrier (iBRB) and the outer blood-retinal barrier (oBRB). The integrity of the BRB is essential to maintaining stability of the retinal microenvironment. Mitophagy plays a crucial role in maintaining organellar integrity by regulating mitochondrial quality and quantity. High glucose-induced mitophagy dysfunction contributes to diabetic retinopathy (DR) by damaging the BRB. This review presents mitophagy mechanisms under physiological conditions and examines changes across different cell types under DR-related pathological conditions that damage the BRB. It also summarizes drugs and targets that regulate mitophagy to stabilize the BRB and alleviate DR, offering new therapeutic insights.
Keywords: Diabetic Retinopathy, Blood-Retinal Barrier, Mitochondrial dysfunction, Mitophagy， Inflammation，Oxidative Stress, therapeutic strategy
Received: 25 Apr 2025; Accepted: 13 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Yang, Zhai, Qiao, Wang, An and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xuedong An, Guang’anmen Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
Jia Wang, Guang’anmen Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
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