PMID- 9642318
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 19980811
LR  - 20220310
IS  - 0366-6999 (Print)
IS  - 0366-6999 (Linking)
VI  - 110
IP  - 9
DP  - 1997 Sep
TI  - Retinal capillary pericyte apoptosis in early human diabetic retinopathy.
PG  - 659-63
AB  - OBJECTIVE: To investigate the nature of retinal capillary pericyte dropout in 
      early human diabetic retinopathy. METHODS: In the present study, neural retinas 
      of 12 postmortem eyes from 6 patients (3 diabetic and 3 nondiabetic) were first 
      fixed in buffered formaldehyde and then digested with trypsin. The preparations 
      of trypsin-digested retinal blood vessels were stained with terminal 
      deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) technique 
      and then with perdiodic acid-Schiff technique (PAS), and counter-stained with 
      hematoxylin to evaluate DNA fragmentation of cell nuclei and diabetic changes of 
      retinal capillaries. RESULTS: TUNEL-positive apoptotic pericytes were observed in 
      retinal capillaries in all three diabetic patients in this study. The 
      TUNEL-positive pericytes were presented as darker stained cells with 
      PAS-hematoxylin staining. A few TUNEL-positive retinal capillary endothelial 
      cells were discovered in both eyes of one of the three diabetic patients. Neither 
      TUNEL-positive pericytes nor positive endothelial cells were found in the three 
      nondiabetic patients. A variety of typical diabetic microvascular changes were 
      noticeable with PAS-hematoxylin staining in trypsin-digested retinal preparations 
      from diabetic patients. These changes included thickened capillary walls, 
      microaneurysms, "ghost-cell"-appearance of pericytes, acellular segments of 
      capillaries, and a decreased ratio of retinal capillary pericytes to endothelial 
      cells. All of these changes are characteristics of diabetic retinal 
      microangiopathy. CONCLUSIONS: Retinal capillary pericyte apoptosis is a specific 
      form of cell death which occurs during the early development of diabetic 
      retinopathy. The significant decrease in the ratio of pericytes to endothelial 
      cells and the predominant TUNEL-positive pericytes over endothelial cells suggest 
      that a greater impact of apoptosis-related mechanisms occurs in pericytes than in 
      endothelial cells and, thereby, a greater loss of pericytes takes place in early 
      diabetic retinopathy. Apoptosis, therefore, is an important mechanism of pericyte 
      dropout in the early diabetic retinopathy.
FAU - Li, W
AU  - Li W
AD  - Department of Ophthalmology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Beijing, 
      China.
FAU - Yanoff, M
AU  - Yanoff M
FAU - Liu, X
AU  - Liu X
FAU - Ye, X
AU  - Ye X
LA  - eng
GR  - EY06563/EY/NEI NIH HHS/United States
PT  - Comparative Study
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
PT  - Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
PL  - China
TA  - Chin Med J (Engl)
JT  - Chinese medical journal
JID - 7513795
SB  - IM
MH  - Aged
MH  - Aged, 80 and over
MH  - *Apoptosis
MH  - Capillaries/pathology
MH  - Diabetic Retinopathy/*pathology
MH  - Endothelium, Vascular/*pathology
MH  - Female
MH  - Humans
MH  - Male
MH  - Retinal Vessels/*pathology
EDAT- 1998/06/27 00:00
MHDA- 1998/06/27 00:01
CRDT- 1998/06/27 00:00
PHST- 1998/06/27 00:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 1998/06/27 00:01 [medline]
PHST- 1998/06/27 00:00 [entrez]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Chin Med J (Engl). 1997 Sep;110(9):659-63.