Yun Le, PhD Assistant Professor of Medicine   Dr. Le's Research Group
Mailing Address: 920 Stanton L. Young Blvd., BSEB 302G Oklahoma City, OK 73104-5020	Telephone: (405) 271-1087 Fax: (405) 271-3973
Email: yun-le@ouhsc.edu

Research Interests

1. Pathogenic mechanisms of diabetic retinopathy: retinal neovascularization and retinal vascular leakage are the common pathogenic changes of diabetic retinopathy and major causes of vision loss in diabetic patients. Dr. Le’s laboratory has been using conditional gene knockout mice to reveal the cellular processes that lead to pathological neovascularization. One area of the research is to investigate the role of the retinal Müller cells in neovasculariztion, vascular permeability, inflammation, and retinal integrity. The other area of research is focused on the function of the outer blood-retina barrier in diabetic retinopathy.
2. Mechanisms of inherited retinal degeneration and age-related macular degeneration: The role of neural protective pathways in retinal survival is being investigated using retinal cell-specific gene knockout mice under normal and stress conditions. Another intensive area of research is to use an inducible gene inactivation system and investigate the role of the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) and RPE-produced growth factors in geographic atrophy and choroidal neovascularization, the dry and wet forms of age-related macular degeneration.
3. Conditional gene expression in the mouse retina: Dr. Le’s laboratory is well-known for the establishment of temporal and spatial gene activation/inactivation systems in the retina, generated with inducible gene expression and Cre/lox technologies. In addition to the use of these systems to investigate the pathogenic mechanisms of inherited retinal degeneration and ocular vascular diseases in his laboratory, Dr. Le has been providing these genetic systems to many investigators around world to advance vision research.

Education

*Le Y., Zheng W., Rao P., Zheng L., Anderson R.E., Esumi N., Zack, J.D., Zhu M., (2008) Inducible expression of Cre recombinase in the RPE. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 49: 1248-1253.

*Le Y., Zheng L., Le, Y., Rucker III E.B., Anderson R.E. (2008) Role of BCL-XL in rod and cone photoreceptor survival. Adv Exp Med Biol 613: 69-74.

Zheng L., Anderson R.E., Agbaga M., Rucker III E.B., *Le Y. (2006) Loss of BCL-XL causes increased rod photoreceptor susceptibility to bright light damage. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. (In press).

*Le Y., Rao P., Zheng W., Esumi N., Zack, J.D., Zhu M., (2006) Inducible expression of Cre recombinase in the RPE. Manuscript in preparation.

*Le Y, Zheng L, Zheng W, Ash J.D., Agbaga M., Zhu, M., Anderson R.E. (2006) Mouse opsin promoter directed Cre recombinase expression in transgenic mice Mol Vis 12: 389-398.

*Le Y, Zheng, L., Robinson., M., and Zheng, W. (2006) Bright light induced RPE damage causes increased photoreceptor apoptosis. Manuscript in preparation.

*Le Y., Ash, J.D., Al-Ubaidi, M.R., Chen, Y., Ma, J., and Anderson, R. E. (2006) Conditional knockout system in photoreceptor cells. Adv Exp Med Biol 572: 173-178.

*Corresponding Author