At the CRATER 2.0 conference in Warsaw, Dr. Henri Leinonen presented new evidence that female mice experience faster retinal degeneration than males in major retinitis pigmentosa (RP) models. The acceleration begins after puberty, suggesting a strong interaction between hormonal maturation and retinal vulnerability.
While inflammation and protein oxidation did not differ between sexes, a clear distinction emerged in lipid peroxidation: female retinas showed markedly higher levels of lipid oxidative damage.
These findings align with recent work showing that ovarian hormones can exacerbate degeneration in the P23H RP model. Together, they point to sex-specific retinal metabolism as a key factor influencing disease progression.
Leinonen emphasized that sex is still underreported in preclinical RP research and urged the field to include sex as a biological variable to enhance translational relevance.Read more at: Female sex is a risk factor for exacerbated lipid peroxidation and disease in murine retinitis pigmentosa | bioRxiv
Photo credits: Krzysztof Ścisło / ICTER (International Centre for Translational Eye Research).