A Metabolic Landscape for Maintaining Retina Integrity and Function

Filipe O Viegas; Stephan C F Neuhauss

doi:10.3389/fnmol.2021.656000

A Metabolic Landscape for Maintaining Retina Integrity and Function

Front Mol Neurosci. 2021 Apr 15:14:656000. doi: 10.3389/fnmol.2021.656000. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Filipe O Viegas^{1

2}, Stephan C F Neuhauss¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Molecular Life Sciences, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
² Life Science Zurich Graduate School, Ph.D. Program in Molecular Life Sciences, Zurich, Switzerland.

Abstract

Neurons have high metabolic demands that are almost exclusively met by glucose supplied from the bloodstream. Glucose is utilized in complex metabolic interactions between neurons and glia cells, described by the astrocyte-neuron lactate shuttle (ANLS) hypothesis. The neural retina faces similar energy demands to the rest of the brain, with additional high anabolic needs to support continuous renewal of photoreceptor outer segments. This demand is met by a fascinating variation of the ANLS in which photoreceptors are the central part of a metabolic landscape, using glucose and supplying surrounding cells with metabolic intermediates. In this review we summarize recent evidence on how neurons, in particular photoreceptors, meet their energy and biosynthetic requirements by comprising a metabolic landscape of interdependent cells.

Keywords: brain; glucose metabolism; metabolism; photoreceptor; retina.

Publication types

Review