Abstract
Purpose :
Diabetic retinopathy is a retinal disease that affect patient with diabetes. And degeneration of retinal vessels and retinal neurons are observed in diabetic retinopathy. Indole-3-carbinol is a phytochemical and an antioxidant. Oxidative stress in diabetic retinopathy is well known. To inhibit degeneration of retinal vessels, protective effect of pericytes by indole-3-carvinol was investigated in this study.
Methods :
Experimental diabetic retinopathy in rat was induced by intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin. The glucose level in blood was detected in tail vein by Accu-Check Performa (Roche). The rats with high blood glucose level (up to 400mg/dl) were selected at 3 days after injection of streptozotocin for this study (n=5). The indole-3-carbinol (5mg/ml) was injected to vitreous body at 3 days after injection of streptozotocin. The loss of pericytes was observed at 2 weeks and 4 weeks after induction of diabetic retinopathy. And the vascular leakage was observed using dextran-FITC angiography and retinal pericytes was observed using electron microscopy and immunostaining against NG2.
Results :
In vehicle treated group, the retinal vascular leakage was observed at 2weeks and 4 weeks after streptozotocin injection. And the loss of pericytes was observed by immunostaining against NG2 at 4 weeks after induction of diabetic retinopathy. The degenerating pericytes were observed by electron microscopy at 2 weeks and 4 weeks after streptozotocin injection. Iin indole-3-carbinol treated group, however, the retinal vascular leakage was suppressed by vitreal injection of indole-3-carbinol. And loss of pericyte by high blood glucose was inhibited by treatment of indole-3-carbinol.
Conclusions :
In this study, we observed that indole-3-carbinol inhibit the vascular leakage and pericyte loss in rat diabetic retinopathy model. These findings suggest that indole-3-cabinol or its derivatives may be able to prevent vascular degeneration in diabetic retinopathy.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.