Bridge of Sight

Sight depends on the many different cell types of the eye's retina all functioning correctly in the right place. The photoreceptor cells (PRC) that respond to the light and transduce that response to the brain are constantly being degraded and renewed. Ingestion of the degraded material is managed by the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), normally in close contact with PRC. This study now shows that RPE continue to perform their function in eye diseases where PRC and RPE are separated, thanks to the ability of RPE to reach out pseudopodia (membrane extensions) across that gap. Shown is a 3D reconstruction of an RPE pseudopod (light green) bridging the expanded sub-retinal space in a mouse model of a retinal degenerative disease.

Read the published research article here

Written by Lindsey Goff

Lindsey Goff

Editor-in-Chief

Formerly immunologist for Cancer Research UK, Lindsey has since moved into the field of scientific publishing. She looks after all BPoD editorial matters.

• Image from work by Tylor R. Lewis and colleagues
• Department of Ophthalmology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Journal of Clinical Investigation, April 2026