Comparative gene expression study and pathway analysis of the human iris- and the retinal pigment epithelium.
The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a neural monolayer lining the back of the eye.Degeneration of the RPE leads to severe vision loss in, so far incurable, diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and some forms of retinitis pigmentosa.A promising future replacement therapy may be autologous iris epithelial cell transdifferentiation in