Abstract
Purpose: :
To determine the anti-apoptosis and anti-inflammatory effects in conjunctival epithelial cells (CEC) treated with doxycycline in vitro.
Methods: :
Primary cultures of CEC were obtained from conjunctival tissue of healthy donors. To determine apoptosis and necrosis, annexin-V and propidium iodure (PI) expression were evaluated by flow cytometry in CEC activated with PMA/ionomycine with/without doxycycline. Supernatants of cultures were used to determine pro-inflammatory cytokines and concentrations of IL-1 and TNF-a were determined by ELISA
Results: :
57% of CEC treated with PMA/ionomycine were positive to PI and Annexin V, and 28% were only positive to annexin-V; when CEC were treated with PMA/ionomycine plus doxycycline we observed that 15% of CEC were positive to PI and annexin V and 34% were positive to annexin-V.
Conclusions: :
CEC treated with doxycycline were resistant to apoptosis induced by PMA/ionomycine and produced less pro-inflammatory cytokines than the CEC treated only with PMA/ionomycine. Further investigations are needed to know the real anti-inflammatory effects of doxycycline in conjunctival cells however this works suggest that doxycycline could be used as anti-inflammatory treatment in ocular surface pathologies.Acknowledgments: This work was partially supported by CONACYT 71291 .
Keywords: apoptosis/cell death • cell survival