Abstract
Purpose:
Apolipoprotein E deficient mouse (apoE-/-), experimental model of genetic hypercholesterolemia, shows retinal protein expression patron alterations. Complement factor H (CFH) is involved in inflammatory process associated to retinal degenerations. We aimed to investigate the effect of the absence of CFH and apoE genes in mouse protein expression in the retina.
Methods:
Wild type (WT), CFH-/-/apoE-/- (DKO) and CFH+/-/apoE+/- (DH) mice were used and divided in groups of age (younger or older than 12 months) having 3-5 animals per group (all mice were in C57BL6/J background). Western blot analysis for vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression, zymography for matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) activity and immunohistochemistry techniques for caspase-1 detection were assessed. For comparisons after a significant ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis among groups, post-hoc tests or U Mann-Whitney were applied (SPSS v.15.0).
Results:
VEGF expression was significantly lower in DH group compared with WT and DK (p<0.001 and p<0.05, respectively). In addition, MMP9 activity was significantly lower (p<0.05) in DH animals comparing to WT group. However, no statistical differences were observed among groups for MMP2 activity. Regarding to caspase-1 detection, it was significantly lower (p<0.05) in DK animals comparing to WT.
Conclusions:
These results show that CFH and apoE genes are involved in the expression of the proteins studied in retinal tissue, and that the total or partial absence of the genes is an important factor for ocular alterations development.
Keywords: 637 pathology: experimental •
695 retinal degenerations: cell biology