Abstract
Purpose: :
Prostaglandins, beta-blockers, carbonic anhydrase inhibitors and other antiglaucoma agents are widely used among elderly patients, the same population vulnerable to age related macular degeneration. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the potential effect of these antiglaucoma agents.
Methods: :
Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) were cultured on the top of BD Falcon tm FTS FluoroBlok tm 24-Multiwell Insert system for 24 hours. The FluoroBlok filter membrane (3 micron pore size) is an intervening membrane that has the ability to block fluorescent emission across the membrane so that a bottom-reading fluorescence plate reader only detects fluorescently labeled cells in the chamber located below the insert. 30 ng/ml latanoprost (prostaglandins), 530 ng/ml timolol malate (beta-blocker), or 1.5ug/ml dorzolamide (carbonic anhydrase inhibitors) were added individually into the insert in the culture for 48 hours. Calcein AM fluorescence dye was used for labeling live endothelial cells; a BioTek FLx800 fluorescence plate reader was used for quantitative measurement of fluorescently labeled invasive vascular endothelial cells. A 3 x 3 area scan fluorescent reading for each well was performed with BioTek’s Gen5 software. A student t-test was used for statistic analysis.
Results: :
The mean relative fluorescence/luminescence unit (RFU) results for the control, latanoprost, dorzolamide, timolol malate were 60±5.26(mean±s.e.),73.46±3.85, 65.77±3.51, and 62±11.04, respectively. The latanoprost shows a statistically significant increase of invasive endothelial cells compared to the control group (p=0.0039:student t-test);dorzolamide may exert a similar effect. The difference between timolol malate and control was not statistically significant.
Conclusions: :
Prostaglandins and carbonic anhydrase inhibitor increase endothelial cell migration in an in vitro assay for angiogenesis. The role of these drugs in the angiogenesis of the AMD patient with glaucoma is not known.
Keywords: drug toxicity/drug effects • vascular endothelial growth factor • carbonic anhydrase