The Effects Of RhEPO On Apoptosis Of Rat Miiller Cells Cultured In High Glucose And The Expression Of Bcl-2and Bax

Objective To investigate the protective effects of Recombinant Human Erythropoietin (rhEPO) on apoptosis of rat retinal Miiller cells cultured in high glucose in vitro and the expression of Bcl-2and Bax.Methods We take modified enzyme-digesting method for culturing retinal Muller cells of newborn SD rats in vitro. Immunocytochemical technique was used to indentify the3～4generation cultured cells. The retinal Muller cells were randomly divided into high glucose group, control group, and therapy group by different concentrations of rhEPO. The retinal cells in the treatment group have been cultured for48h with high glucose (5、10、20、40U/ml), The method of MTT was used to estimate the vitality of retinal Muller cells, and the expression levels of Bcl-2and Bax proteinof Miiller cells was detected by enzyme-linked immuno sorbent assay (ELISA)Results The results of immunocytochemical staining demonstrate that more than95%of the cultured cells were positive stained for the glutamine synthetase. At the condition of high glucose, the vitality of retinal Muller cells were declined evidently compare with the control group, the expression of Bcl-2protein reduced and the expression of Bax protein rised. All the group of rhEPO could effectively reinforce the the vitality of cells and expression of Bcl-2protein (P<0.05), while decrease the expression of Bax protein (P<0.05) compare with the high glucose group.Conclusion rhEPO inhibits the apoptosisof rat retinal Miiller cells cultured in high glucose in vitro, and effectively increases the expression of Bcl-2protein while decreases the expression of Bax protein, which suggests that upregulating the expression of Bcl-2and down regulating the expression of Bax of Muller cells may be one of rhEPO’s antiapoptosis mechanisims...