Journal Article

Retinal pigment epithelium extracellular vesicles are potent inducers of age‐related macular degeneration disease phenotype in the outer retina

Medina, Reinhold J, Beh, Chia Shyan, Kurzawa‐Akanbi, Marzena, Pathak, Varun, Georgiou, Maria, Morris, Christopher M, Hilgen, Birthe, Lako, Majlinda, Korolchuk, Viktor I, Armstrong, Lyle, Gliaudelytė, Lina, Platt, Mark, Coxhead, Jonathan, Fabrikova, Daniela, Öberg, Maria, Taggart, Michael, Whitfield, Phillip, Steel, David H, Guduric‐Fuchs, Jasenka, Burté, Florence, Härtlova, Anetta, Davey, Tracey, Queen, Rachel, Collin, Joseph, Doherty, Mary, Bertelli, Pietro Maria, Al‐Aama, Jumana, Boczonadi, Veronika, Porter, Andrew

2022

Overview

Age‐related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness. Vision loss is caused by the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and photoreceptors atrophy and/or retinal and choroidal angiogenesis. Here we use AMD patient‐specific RPE cells with the Complement Factor H Y402H high‐risk polymorphism to perform a comprehensive analysis of extracellular vesicles (EVs), their cargo and role in disease pathology. We show that AMD RPE is characterised by enhanced polarised EV secretion. Multi‐omics analyses demonstrate that AMD RPE EVs carry RNA, proteins and lipids, which mediate key AMD features including oxidative stress, cytoskeletal dysfunction, angiogenesis and drusen accumulation. Moreover, AMD RPE EVs induce amyloid fibril formation, revealing their role in drusen formation. We demonstrate that exposure of control RPE to AMD RPE apical EVs leads to the acquisition of AMD features such as stress vacuoles, cytoskeletal destabilization and abnormalities in the morphology of the nucleus. Retinal organoid treatment with apical AMD RPE EVs leads to disrupted neuroepithelium and the appearance of cytoprotective alpha B crystallin immunopositive cells, with some co‐expressing retinal progenitor cell markers Pax6/Vsx2, suggesting injury‐induced regenerative pathways activation. These findings indicate that AMD RPE EVs are potent inducers of AMD phenotype in the neighbouring RPE and retinal cells.

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc,Wiley
• Subject: age-related macular degeneration / Amyloid / Angiogenesis / Atrophy / Autophagy / Cell activation / Cell and Molecular Biology / Cell- och molekylärbiologi / Cholesterol / Complement factor H / Crystallin / Cytoskeleton / Enzymes / Epithelium / extracellular / Extracellular vesicles / Extracellular Vesicles - metabolism / Health risk assessment / human induced pluripotent stem cells / Humans / Lipids / Macular degeneration / Macular Degeneration - metabolism / Organoids / Oxidative stress / Pax6 protein / Phenotype / Phenotypes / Photoreceptors / Polymorphism / Progenitor cells / Retina / Retina - metabolism / Retina - pathology / retinal pigment / Retinal pigment epithelium / Retinal Pigment Epithelium - metabolism / Risk factors / Stem cells / Vacuoles / Vascular endothelial growth factor / vesicles