The retina regenerates from retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells by transdifferentiation in the adult newt and Xenopus laevis when it is surgically removed. This was studied under a novel culture condition, and we succeeded, for the first time, in developing a complete retinal laminar structure from a single epithelial sheet of RPE. We cultured a Xenopus RPE monolayer sheet isolated from the ...

PURPOSE The vertebrate retina develops from the center to the periphery. In amphibians and fish the retinal margin continues to proliferate throughout life, resulting in retinal expansion. This does not happen in mammals. However, some mammalian peripheral retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells continue to divide, perhaps as a vestige of this mechanism. The RPE cells are adjacent to the ciliary...

Myosin VIIa functions in the outer retina, and loss of this function causes human blindness in Usher syndrome type 1B (USH1B). In mice with mutant Myo7a, melanosomes in the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) are distributed abnormally. In this investigation we detected many proteins in RPE cells that could potentially participate in melanosome transport, but of those tested, only myosin VIIa an...

The purpose of this work was to determine the expression profiles of retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells grown on different matrices and to assess the degree of culture-induced artifact by comparing the profiles to native RPE. Visually confluent ARPE-19 cells were grown on plastic, Matrigel, collagen I, collagen IV, laminin, and fibronectin for 1 wk, and serum was withdrawn for 3 days. Morph...

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells is inevitable change of age‑related macular degeneration (AMD). Smoking is a major risk factor for the development of EMT in several diseases, including lung cancer. Cigarette smoke‑induced stress promotes the production of epidermal growth factor (EGF) in RPE cells. However, the underlying signaling pathways indu...

PURPOSE Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha is an important cytokine associated with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR). TNF-alpha activates the extrinsic apoptotic pathway. In many cells, nuclear transcription factor (NF)-kappaB upregulates antiapoptotic proteins and prevents TNF-alpha-mediated apoptosis. However, retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cel...

Dry age-related macular degeneration and Stargardt disease undergo a known toxic mechanism caused by carbonyl oxidative stresses (COS). This is responsible for accumulation in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) of A2E, main pyridinium bis-retinoid lipofuscin component. Previous studies have shown that stress cells could be reduced an alkyl-phloroglucinol-DHA conjugate (lipophenol). Here, we p...

PURPOSE During routine cell culture and under pathologic conditions, human retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells lose epithelial characteristics and change their morphology. In this study, changes in gene expression in RPE cells of different generations were evaluated by polymerase-chain-reaction-based differential display mRNA analysis (DD-RT-PCR). METHODS Total RNA was prepared from freshl...

PURPOSE An earlier study showed that age-related changes in the inner collagen layer (ICL) inhibit RPE cell repopulation of human Bruch's membrane. The present study was undertaken to determine the effect of cleaning and/or an extracellular matrix (ECM) protein coating on the reattachment, apoptosis, proliferation, and final surface coverage of the transplanted RPE cells. METHODS Explants of ...

PURPOSE The aim of this project was to investigate the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) at the molecular level by identification of novel RPE-specific cDNAs that may encode proteins of signal transduction pathways or other proteins that are expressed preferentially in the RPE. METHODS A bovine RPE cDNA library was constructed in bacteriophage lambda g10 using RPE-enriched poly(A)+ RNA. The li...