Research progress in autophagy on dry age-related macular degeneration

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a common cause of vision loss and living quality impairment in elderly people.Dry AMD is considered to be a neurodegenerative disease, and there has been no preventive method or effective therapy for it so far.Recent studies reveal that accumulation of lipofuscin may lead to dysfunction and even death of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells.Autophagy is a major lysosome-dependent degradation pathway in eukaryotes involved in the disposal of damaged cytoplasmic proteins and organelles.Autophagy is revealed to be involved in the pathological processes of several neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and dry AMD.Therefore, studies focus on autophagy may provide a new target for the prevention and treatment of dry AMD.This paper reviewed the research progress of autophagy in the pathogenesis of AMD in recent years.The roles of autophagy, lysosomal damage, oxidative stress and immune inflammatory reaction were described.