Effects of Müller cells on growth of RPE cells in a co-culture system in hypoxia condition

Background More and more evidences suggest that the interaction of retinal progression of retinal diseases.Objective Present study was to investigate the primarily cultured and digested using explant culture method and trypsas acidic protein(GFAP) staining,S-100 staining and cytokine-18 staining co-cultured under the normoxia and hypoxia using transwell chamber,and the proliferation and migration of cultured RPE cells were examined using MTT and compared with only RPE cells cultured group at 3, 6, 24 and 48 hours.Results Over 90% of primarily cultured RPE cells showed the positive response for S-100.The proliferation and migration of RPE cells were significantly increased in hypoxia condition compared with normoxia condition (P＜0.01).In hypoxia group,amount of proliferation and migration of RPE cells in co-culture group were higher than the only RPE cells cultured group(P＜0.01).Conclusion Hypoxia appear to aggravate the proliferation and migration of RPE cells under the hypoxia status. Key words: Muller cell; Retinal pigment epithelium; Hypoxia; Cellular proliferation; Cellular migration