Boochoon, Kieran, Manarang, Joseph, Davis, Joshua, McDermott, Alison and Foster, William (2014) The influence of substrate elastic modulus on retinal pigment epithelial cell phagocytosis. Journal of Biomechanics, 47 (12). pp. 3237-3240. ISSN 0021-9290
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
To better understand if a complex process such as phagocytosis is influenced by substrate stiffness, we investigated the influence of substrate elastic modulus on phagocytosis in the retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cell line ARPE-19. RPE cells lie on Bruch׳s membrane, directly under the retina, and phagocytose the shed photoreceptor outer segments. Bruch׳s membrane is known to increase in stiffness by an order of magnitude with age and thus, this study has potential relevance in explaining retinal changes in age-related macular degeneration.
ARPE-19 cells were plated on laminin-coated polyacrylamide substrates of varying elastic modulus. After 14 days in culture, a solution of latex fluorescent beads suspended in PBS was placed in each well. After an incubation time of 4 h, flow cytometry was performed to determine the number of cells that phagocytosed a bead. The number of ARPE-19 cells that phagocytosed a bead decreased continuously as a function of increasing substrate elastic modulus (p=0.0135), and this was found to be a linear relationship (slope=−0.03305±0.01104, R2=0.4726 per 10,000 cells).
Our results suggest that RPE cells display decreased phagocytosis when grown on firmer substrates, and thus, RPE cells in older eyes, in which Bruch׳s membrane is stiffer, may demonstrate decreased phagocytosis. Impaired phagocytosis by RPE cells may contribute to impaired metabolism of photoreceptor outer segments and to development of macular degeneration. Material stiffness may be a critical parameter in the development of neural therapies, including retinal prosthetics and stem cell therapies.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Mechanotransduction; Retinal pigment epithelium; Phagocytosis; Flow cytometry |
| Subjects: | B500 Ophthalmics |
| Department: | Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Applied Sciences |
| Depositing User: | Becky Skoyles |
| Date Deposited: | 23 May 2017 10:50 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Oct 2019 18:29 |
| URI: | http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/30797 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year
