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Published on: August 20, 2016
Role of Caveolin-1 for Blocking the Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition in Proliferative Vitreoretinopathy
Yosuke Nagasaka1, Hiroki Kaneko1, Fuxiang Ye1
1Department of Ophthalmology, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan.
Purpose:
Proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR) is one of the most severe ocular diseases. Fibrotic changes in retinal cells are considered to be involved in the pathogenesis of PVR. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of RPE cells is one of the main concepts in the pathogenesis of fibrovascular membranes (FVMs) in PVR. In this study, we examined the expression of Caveolin-1 in human FVMs from patients with PVR. We also examined the role of Caveolin-1 in the pathogenesis of PVR.
Methods:
Western blotting, real-time PCR, and immunohistochemistry were performed with human FVMs and mouse eyes with PVR. Cell migration assays were performed to evaluate the involvement of Caveolin-1 in EMT using primary human and mouse RPE cells.
Results:
Caveolin-1 was expressed in human FVMs and upregulated in the mouse eyes with PVR. The alpha-smooth muscle actin (αSMA) expression and migration ability were increased in RPE cells with knockout or knockdown of Caveolin-1, whereas zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1) immunohistochemistry showed reduced morphology and expression of ZO-1. In addition, migration assays showed that Caveolin-1 reduction increased RPE cell migration abilities.
Conclusions:
These results indicated that Caveolin-1 in RPE cells prevents PVR by blocking EMT.
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