The retinal pigment epithelium is a monolayer of pigmented, hexagonal cells connected by tight junctions. These cells compose part of the outer blood-retina barrier, protect the eye from excessive light, have important secretory functions, and support the function of photoreceptors, ensuring the coordination of a variety of regulatory mechanisms. It is the degeneration of the pigment epithelium that is the root cause of many retinal degenerative diseases. The search for reliable cell sources for the transplantation of retinal pigment epithelium is of extreme urgency. Pluripotent stem cells (embryonic stem or induced pluripotent) can be differentiated with high efficiency into the pigment epithelium of the retina, which opens up possibilities for cellular therapy in macular degeneration and can slow down the development of pathology and, perhaps, restore a patient's vision. Pioneering clinical trials on transplantation of retinal pigment epithelial cells differentiated from pluripotent stem cells in the United States and Japan confirmed the need for developing and optimizing such approaches to cell therapy. For effective use, pigment epithelial cells differentiated from pluripotent stem cells should have a set of functional properties characteristic of such cells in vivo. This review summarizes the current state of preclinical and clinical studies in the field of retinal pigment epithelial transplantation therapy. We also discuss different differentiation protocols based on data in the literature and our own data, and the problems holding back the widespread therapeutic application of retinal pigment epithelium differentiated from pluripotent stem cells.
The physiology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis, is being studied with intensity. However, despite the genomic and transcriptomic data available today, the pathogenic potential of these bacteria remains poorly understood. Therefore, proteomic approaches seem relevant in studying mycobacteria. This review covers the main stages in the proteomic analysis methods used to study mycobacteria. The main achievements in the area of M. tuberculosis proteomics are described in general. Special attention is paid to the proteomic features of the Beijing family, which is widespread in Russia. Considering that the proteome is a set of all the proteins in the cell, post-translational modifications of mycobacterium proteins are also described.