The NIH's Funding to US Dental Institutions from 2005 to 2014.

This study examines funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to US dental institutions between 2005 and 2014 based on publicly available data from the NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools. Over the 10-y span, 56 US dental institutions received approximately $2.2 billion from 20 Institutes, Centers, and Offices at the NIH.

Loss of retinal progenitor cells leads to an increase in the retinal stem cell population in vivo.

Retinal stem cells [with the potential to produce either neural retinal progenitors or retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) progenitors] exist in the mammalian eye throughout life, and indeed the greatest absolute increase in the stem population occurs postnatally. The stem cells proliferate embryonically and thus may help to build the retina initially, but in postnatal mammals they clearly do not proliferate to regenerate the retina in response to injury. Using Chx10(orJ/orJ) and Mitf(mi/mi) mice, with small eye phenotypes due to the reduction of the neural retinal progenitor population and the retinal pigmented epithelial progenitor population, respectively, we now report that the retinal stem cell population, when assayed from the ciliary margin, increases 3-8-fold in both mutants.

Chx10 repression of Mitf is required for the maintenance of mammalian neuroretinal identity.

During vertebrate eye development, the cells of the optic vesicle (OV) become either neuroretinal progenitors expressing the transcription factor Chx10, or retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) progenitors expressing the transcription factor Mitf. Chx10 mutations lead to microphthalmia and impaired neuroretinal proliferation. Mitf mutants have a dorsal RPE-to-neuroretinal phenotypic transformation, indicating that Mitf is a determinant of RPE identity.

Human microphthalmia associated with mutations in the retinal homeobox gene CHX10.

Isolated human microphthalmia/anophthalmia, a cause of congenital blindness, is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous developmental disorder characterized by a small eye and other ocular abnormalities. Three microphthalmia/anophthalmia loci have been identified, and two others have been inferred by the co-segregation of translocations with the phenotype. We previously found that mice with ocular retardation (the or-J allele), a microphthalmia phenotype, have a null mutation in the retinal homeobox gene Chx10 (refs 7,8).

Retinal stem cells in the adult mammalian eye.

The mature mammalian retina is thought to lack regenerative capacity. Here, we report the identification of a stem cell in the adult mouse eye, which represents a possible substrate for retinal regeneration. Single pigmented ciliary margin cells clonally proliferate in vitro to form sphere colonies of cells that can differentiate into retinal-specific cell types, including rod photoreceptors, bipolar neurons, and Müller glia.