Delay of UV-induced eye lens protein damage in guinea pigs by dietary ascorbate

Large accumulations of postsynthetically oxidized proteins are observed in the aged and cataractous eye lens. Ascorbate has previously been used to delay photooxidative damage in vitro. The goals of this study were to confirm that dietary ascorbate can be used to enhance lens ascorbate levels and to determine if lenses with enhanced ascorbate can better withstand photooxidative stress in the form of ultraviolet (UV) light exposure. Guinea pigs were placed on high dietary ascorbate (HDA), 50 mg/day, and low dietary ascorbate (LDA), 2 mg/day, for 21 weeks. Lenses from HDA animals were found to contain 3.3 times more ascorbate than LDA animals. Prior to irradiation, SDS-PAGE protein profiles and exopeptidase activity in HDA and LDA lens soluble proteins were indistinguishable. However upon exposure to UV light, more protein damage (e.g., high-molecular-weight aggregates and enhanced loss of exopeptidase activity) was seen in lens preparations from LDA as compared to HDA animals. These results suggest that ascorbate protects lens components against cataract-like and age-related postsynthetic changes in vivo. As in previous tests on lens preparations, attenuated exopeptidase activity was observed before protein aggregation.