Diabetes Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Diabetes, including details on insulin, type i, type ii, diet, treatment, prevention.

Pericytes and the prevention of diabetic retinopathy.

Kim J

Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Internal Medicine, Chung-Ang University Hospital, 82-1 Pil-dong, 2Ka Chung-ku, Seoul 100-272, South Korea. jtkim@cau.ac.kr

Diabetic retinopathy is a leading cause of blindness and one of the hallmarks of early diabetic retinopathy is death of pericytes. I studied the effect of glycated albumin (GA) on the retinal pericyte death and assessed the protective effects of some well-known antioxidant materials. GA produced a progressive cytotoxic effect in a near time and dose dependent manner. Among the antioxidant pretreatments, L-ascorbic acid, Trolox, produced a reduction of GA-induced cytototoxicity. N-Acetyl-L-cysteine showed partial effect but taurine had no effect on the GA-toxicity. In conclusion, I demonstrated the effect of GA on the retinal pericyte death and some antioxidants effectively prevented the GA-induced cell death in pericytes.

Published 26 November 2004 in Diabetes Res Clin Pract, 66: S49-51.
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