Glutathione peroxidase 4 is required for maturation of photoreceptor cells

Oxidative stress is implicated in the pathologies of photoreceptor cells, and the protective role of antioxidant enzymes for photoreceptor cells have been well understood. However, their essentiality has remained unknown. In this study we generated photoreceptor-specific conditional knock-out (CKO) mice of glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPx4) and showed the critical role of GPx4 for photoreceptor cells. In the wild-type retina the dominant GPx4 expression was in the mitochondria, indicating the mitochondrial variant was the major GPx4 in the retina. In the GPx4-CKO mice, although photoreceptor cells developed and differentiated into rod and cone cells by P12, they rapidly underwent drastic degeneration and completely disappeared by P21. The photoreceptor cell death in the GPx4-CKO mice was associated with the nuclear translocation of apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF) and TUNEL-positive cells. Photoreceptor cells before undergoing apoptosis (P11) exhibited decreased mitochondrial biomass, decreased number of connecting cilia, as well as disorganized structure of outer segments. These findings indicate that GPx4 is a critical antioxidant enzyme for the maturation and survival of photoreceptor cells.