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Objective To investigate the effect of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) on ferroptosis in human retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cell cultured in vitro.
Methods ARPE-19 cell lines were cultured in DMEM medium containing 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS), and the 3rd to 6th generations of cells were used for further study.Cell activity was detected by using the cell counting kit 8 after ARPE-19 were cultured with AGEs at 0, 50, 100, 200, 400 μg/ml for 48 hours.The cells were cultured with 200 μg/ml AGEs for 48 hours.Cell lipid peroxidation level was measured by Lipid Peroxidation Assay Kit (Bodipy 581/591 C11) combined with flow cytometry.The relative mRNA and protein expression levels of solute carrier family 7 member 11 (SLC7A11) and glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) were determined by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and Western blot.The morphology of mitochondria was observed by transmission electron microscope.
Results The activity of ARPE-19 cells decreased with increasing AGEs concentration, and the overall difference of ARPE-19 activity among 0, 50, 100, 200, 400 μg/ml AGEs groups was statistically significant ( F=6.21, P<0.01).The cell activity of ARPE-19 cells in 200 and 400 μg/ml AGEs groups was lower than that in control group (both P<0.05).Flow cytometry showed that the fluorescence intensity in AGEs group was 622.0±11.3, which was significantly higher than 487.7±12.8 in control group ( t=6.809, P=0.002).qRT-PCR showed that the mRNA and protein relative expression levels of SLC7A11 and GPX4 were lower in AGEs group than those in control group (mRNA: t=3.72, 7.14, both P<0.05; protein: t=6.20, 5.15, both P<0.05).Transmission electron microscopy showed that mitochondria in AGEs group shrank with significantly reduced volume, decreased mitochondrial cristae, and increased mitochondrial membrane density.
Conclusions AGEs can induce ferroptosis in ARPE-19 cultured in vitro.