Amino acids and their transporters in the retina

This review provides an overview of the distributions, properties and roles of amino acid transport systems in normal and pathological retinal tissues and discusses the roles of specific identified transporters in the mammali an retina. The retina is used in this context as a vehicle for describing n euronal and glial properties. which are in semi, but not all cases comparab le to those found elsewhere an the brain. Where significant departures are noted, these are discussed in the context of functional specialisations of the retina and its relationship to adjacent supporting tissues such as the retinal pigment epithelium. Specific examples are given where immunocytoche mical labelling for amino acid transporters may yield inaccurate results, p ossibly because of activity-dependent conformation changes of epitopes in t hese proteins which render the epitopes more or less accessible to antibodi es. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.