Age-Related Macular Degeneration and the Extracellular Matrix

Macular degeneration is a class of blinding disorders characterized by changes in the macula, the central area of the neural retina that is responsible for high-acuity vision (see Figure 1). Such disorders are the leading causes of irreversible visual loss in elderly persons in the Western world. Newly emerging evidence implicates abnormalities in specific components of the extracellular matrix in these eye diseases. For example, in this issue of the Journal, Stone and coworkers (pages 346–353) report missense mutations in a gene encoding an extracellular-matrix protein known as fibulin 5 in patients with the highly prevalent age-related form of macular degeneration. . . .