α2-Macroglobulin increase in a retinopathy induced by metabolic syndrome in mouse

PAZ, MARÍA C.; VAGLIENTI, MARIA V.; SUBIRADA, PAULA V.; BARCELONA, PABLO F.; SÁNCHEZ, MARÍA C.

Virtual

Congreso; XIII CONGRESO NACIONAL DE INVESTIGACIÓN EN VISIÓN Y OFTALMOLOGÍA; 2021

AIVO

Metabolic Syndrome (MetSyn) is a complex disorder of metabolism that affects different organs including the retina, triggering retinopathies. These diseases present, in addition to vascular alterations, a progressive neuronal degeneration. In this sense, α2-Macroglobulin (α2-M) has been proposed as a mediator of neurotoxicity. Considering that the neurodegeneration precedes microvascular lesions in retinopathies, in this work, it was proposed to evaluate gene and protein expression of α2-M in a mouse model of MetSyn that exhibits signs of non-proliferative retinopathy, such as neuronal impairment and mild vascular alterations. C57BL/6 (WT) and Apolipoprotein E knockout (ApoE KO) mice fed with normal diet (ND) or 10% w/v fructose diet (FD) in drinking water from 2 months of age were used. After 4 months of diet retinal extracts were obtained for Western blot and qRT-PCR analysis. Data was statistically analyzed by two-way ANOVA and Bonferroni post-hoc (p ≤ 0.05). All experimental procedures will be carried out following the standards of The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) and the ethics committee of Chemical Sciences faculty. The results showed α2-M mRNA expression in mice retina and a significant increase of α2-M protein expression in retinal extracts of ApoE KO mice with both diets, thus α2-M is synthetized in the mouse retina and their expression is increased in mice with metabolic alterations. These results are more than encouraging and strongly support the initiation of studies that allow us to know the role of α2-M in early stages of retinopathy induced by MetSyn.