Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Biomedical Sciences & Technology, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Chennai, India.
Department of Pharmaceutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Chennai, India.
Int J Biochem Cell Biol. 2021 May;134:105971. doi: 10.1016/j.biocel.2021.105971. Epub 2021 Mar 26.
Pericytes (PC) are microvascular mural cells that make specific cell-to-cell contacts with the endothelial cells (EC). These cells are obligatory constituents of the microvessels including the retinal vasculature and they serve as regulators of vascular development, stabilization, maturation and remodeling. During early stages of diabetic retinopathy (DR), apoptotic loss of PC surrounding the retinal vasculature occurs. This may lead to reduced vessel stability, the onset of EC apoptosis, and subsequent retinal ischemia leading to angiogenesis and eventually, severe vision loss due to late proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). Similarly, diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a chronic kidney disease due to hyperglycemia that particularly affects renal PC. Chronic high blood glucose level causes migration of peritubular PC away from the capillary into the interstitial space, which destabilizes the micro vessels, resulting in microvascular rarefaction. In both diabetes associated complications, the identification of specific biomarkers is necessary to stabilize the PC at an early stage. This review largely covers the importance of PC towards the pathogenesis of diabetes associated complications, and their heterogeneity in healthy and angiogenic vasculature.
周细胞（PC）是与内皮细胞（EC）形成特定细胞间连接的微血管壁细胞。这些细胞是包括视网膜血管在内的微血管的必需组成部分，可作为血管发育、稳定、成熟和重塑的调节剂。在糖尿病视网膜病变（DR）的早期阶段，视网膜血管周围的 PC 发生凋亡性丧失。这可能导致血管稳定性降低、EC 凋亡的发生，以及随后的视网膜缺血导致血管生成，最终由于晚期增殖性糖尿病视网膜病变（PDR）导致严重视力丧失。同样，糖尿病肾病（DN）是一种由高血糖引起的慢性肾脏疾病，特别影响肾周细胞。慢性高血糖水平导致小管周 PC 从毛细血管迁移到间质空间，使微血管不稳定，导致微血管稀疏。在这两种与糖尿病相关的并发症中，有必要鉴定特定的生物标志物来在早期稳定 PC。这篇综述主要涵盖了 PC 在糖尿病相关并发症发病机制中的重要性及其在健康和血管生成血管中的异质性。
