Abstract
Purpose:
Posterior capsule opacification (PCO) is the most common reason for secondary visual deterioration after successful cataract surgery and occurs in more than 40% of patients ten years after surgery. Alkylphosphocholines (APC) have proven to posses properties to reduce PCO formation in vitro. This study aims to investigate the feasibility of pharmacologic PCO prophylaxis with alkylphosphocholine (APC) coated hydrophilic acrylic intraocular lenses (IOLs), a possible way of prospective application, in a human anterior chamber model (HACM) in vitro.
Methods:
Four different hydrophilic acrylic intraocular lenses (IOLs) were covered with APCs. Uncoated IOLs served as controls. Proliferating human lens epithelial cells (HLE-B3) were grown in MEM with 3% FCS supplemented with 50 IU penicillin/ml and 50 µg streptomycin/ml, on PET membranes, uncoated or coated with collagen I or laminin, in cell culture inserts. APC coated and control IOLs were then each placed on top. After 5 days of cultivation under standard cell culture conditions, the Tetrazolium Dye Reduction Assay (MTT) was performed and the optical density was assessed (ELISA) to calculate the number of vital cells per well and the area of cell distribution in percent control. Each experiment was performed in duplicate and repeated three times (n = 12 for each setting).
Results:
APC coated IOLs inhibit human lens epithelial cell proliferation significantly in terms of the total number of proliferating cells as well as the central cell distribution. There was also a difference between uncoated cell culture inserts compared to coated ones (in % control): We found a reduction of 25%±18 for uncoated compared to 48%±23 for coated inserts in terms of the total cell number and also a decrease in cell distribution on PET membranes of 32%±12 (uncoated) and 45%±17 (coated) respectively. The ability of APC coated IOLs to inhibit HLE-B3 cell proliferation in vitro was best on IOLs with a water content of 28 %.
Conclusions:
We could demonstrate that APC coated IOLs are effective inhibitors of human lens epithelial cell proliferation in the presence of ECM components in a HACM of PCO. APCs ability to reduce major components of PCO formation in vitro together with their chemical properties making them suitable coating agents for hydrophilic acrylic IOLs show that APCs could become a valuable IOL coating agent for the prevention of PCO.