Cerium oxide nanoparticles reduce the accumulation of autofluorescent deposits in light-induced retinal degeneration: Insights for age-related macular de generation.

Cerium oxide nanoparticles reduce the accumulation of autofluorescent deposits in light-induced retinal degeneration: Insights for age-related macular de generation. Exp Eye Res. 2020 Aug 03;:108169 Authors: Tisi A, Passacantando M, Lozzi L, Maccarone R Abstract Accumulation of lipofuscin deposits in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is one of the main events involved in age-related macular degeneration and its increase together with RPE dysfunction, blood retinal barrier disruption and photoreceptors death progressively leads to blindness. Lipofuscin is the main autofluorescent (AF) component of the retina and therapies to counteract its deposition are a main goal to be achieved, since effective treatments have not yet been identified. Here, we first investigated the spatio-temporal pattern of AF deposits accumulation in the light-damage model of age-related macular degeneration. Afterward, we tested the ability of cerium oxide nanoparticles, a well known anti-oxidant agent, to counteract AF granules accumulation. The treatment was performed both before and after the induction of the degeneration. AF granules were quantified by confocal microscopy on whole mounted retinas. We demonstrated that the acute light-damage increases the accumulation of AF deposits in the hot spot retina in terms of number of granules and percentage of occupied area, with a peak 7 days after the exposure. Remarkably, cerium oxide nanoparticles showed a s...
Source: Experimental Eye Research - Category: Opthalmology Authors: Tags: Exp Eye Res Source Type: research